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MOONS 



OF 



GRANDEUR 

WILLIAM ROSE 
BENET 







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MOONS OF GRAND EUR 
WIILLAM ROSE BENET 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/moonsofgrandeurbOOben 



MOONS 
OF GRANDEUR 

A BOOK OF POEMS 



BY 
WILLIAM ROSE BENET 




NEW >(aJr YORK 
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



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COPYRIGHT, 1920 
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



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PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OP AMERICA 



OCT 20 1920 
©CU601080 



THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED 

TO 
HENRY MARTYN HOYT 
Remembering 1906-1920 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

For permission to reprint here a few of the 
shorter poems included, the author thanks The Cen- 
tury Magazine, Harper's Monthly Magazine, The 
Yale Review, The Bookman, The Delineator, Ains- 
lee's Magazine, The Munsey Magazine, The Touch- 
stone, Romance, The Seven Arts, Poetry, Contem- 
porary Verse, and The Bowling Green, New York 
Evening Post. 



CONTENTS 

Gaspara Stampa 11 

" The Daughter of Iniquity " . . . 15 
Legend of Michelotto .... .24 

There Lived a Lady in Milan ... 29 

II Moro in Loches 32 

NiccoLo in Exile 40 

Renegade 42 

Bourbon's Love 45 

The Triumphant Tuscan . . . ' . 52 

Michelangelo in the Fish-Market . . 74 

Bast 75 

The Sun Gazer 76 

The Queen's Idyll 83 

Thorstan's Friend 93 

The Ballad of Taillefer ... .96 

On Edward Webbe, English Gunner , 103 

The Priest in the Desert .... 104 

Eugenie's Solitaire 109 

In the House of Hallucination . .113 

The Silver Balloon 125 

The Master of the Flying Castle . . 126 

Dust of the Plains 130 

The Race 132 

The Voyage 135 

[vii] 



CONTENTS 

Along the Embarcadero .... 145 

The City .147 

When the Caterer Sang of His Wedding 150 
Metamorphosis — Not in Ovid . . .152 

The Heretic 154 

The Lonely 155 

Enigma 157 

Rencontre . 158 

The Philosopher . . . . . . l60 

Friends l62 

To My Father ...... 164 

Tricksters 168 

Being Curious 169 

O'Connor's Cafe 170 

Menagerie 171 

From Sparta 172 

The Foil 173 

Charles Darwin 174 

Night 175 



[viii] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 



MOONS 
OF GRANDEUR 

GASPARA STAMPA 

" Sa^G de' nostri tempi alta Gaspara" 

VENICE — CIJraUECEB^TO 

" I burned, I wept, I sang; I burn, sing, weep again. 
And I shall weep and sing, I shall forever burn 
Until or death or time or fortune's turn 
Shall still my eye and heart, still fire and pain" 

Like flame, like wine, across the still lagoon 

The colors of the sunset stream. 

Spectral in heaven as climbs the frail veiled moon. 

So climbs my dream. 

Out of the heart's eternal torture fire 

No eastern phoenix risen — 

Only the naked soul, spent with desire. 

Bursts its prison. 

O love, magnificent and dreadful love 
At last consuming heart and brain. 
Palling all days with thoughts we weary of. 
Weary of pain, — 

[111 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

Gaspara Stampa [continued] 

O golden city set in the sun's heart, 
Isled in a golden sea. 
Yet what a vague phantasmal counterpart 
Of what might be. 

Darkness comes down upon your domes and towers. 

Dark gondolas gliding under evening bells. 

Deep night spreads burning over faded hours 

The hell of hells. 

The shadows mock me with his step, his sigh. 

The treacherous tapers flare 

And flaw; but though I stare with burning eye 

He is not there. 



CoUalto, my illustrious lord, it is 

So strange ! One word, one sign 

Would turn, like Cana's metamorphosis. 

These tears to wine. 

Wine from my heart — or shall my blood be shed 

To seal the crumpled scroll. 

Who gave you living, who would give you dead 

Body and soul? 

Capitals, columns, arches, sculptures fall. 
The ivy crawls on Istrian stone ; 
Tower and palace, chapel, drawbridge, all 
Time leaves prone; 
[12] 



GASPARA STAMPA 

Gaspara Stampa [continued] 

Only our Alps whose blue without one stain 
Blends into higher light — 
My namesake stream of the Trevisian plain — 
Time finds bright. 

Yet will not Time, kind to the Paduan, scroll 

My name at last with yours 

Vittoria, Veronica? If the soul 

Of song endures 

I grasp eternity. O barren bliss 

Beside pomegranate flowers 

Swayed in the moonlight, and one secret kiss, — 

Bliss once ours. 

For France is far, so far, my dearest lord. 

Beyond the Alps so far, men say. 

One little word, even one little word 

Loses its way. 

Is it not piteous then to die, to live 

In death, to gasp unheard 

In thirst unslaked for what one word could give, 

One little word? 

And for a faith to tread consuming heat 
And for a love to look on death 
And to go robed in fire, in fire complete. 
With sharp-drawn breath. 

While the trapped heart, grown frenzied with its 
pain, 

[13] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

Gaspara Stampa [continued] 

For joy once scorning fate 

Storms with wild wings, again and yet again. 

Your iron gate? 

The gods returned to earth when Venice broke 

Like Venus from the dawn-encircled sea. 

Wide laughed the skies with light when Venice woke 

Crowned of antiquity, 

And as with spoil of gems bewildering earth 

Art in her glorious mind 

Jewelled all Italy for joy's rebirth 

To all mankind. 

And we were heirs^ true bounden heirs of this 

Epoch of glittering life and bannered love 

Even as we whispered in our earliest kiss 

The joy thereof. 

Ere sunlight on a condottiere's lance, 

A bitter trumpet blown 

Scattered your words and swept your heart toward 

France, 
Left me alone. 

The hyssop on the reed, this, this to drink 
In this dark hour shall seal it as the last. 
No word, my lord — and no more thoughts to think 
When this is past. 

Titian awhile his garden walk may tread 
And Sansovino keep 

My words, words you may read when I am dead. 
But I — would sleep. 
[14] 



" THE DAUGHTER OF INIQUITY " 



« THE DAUGHTER OF INIQUITY 



5> 



In the wild days, in the wild days when all Ro- 

magna lay 
Blood-soaked by the ferocity of Borgia, loosed on 

Italy, 
One woman faced him to the last — for that was 

Catherine's way! 

The dawn of a new century crept over Forli town. 

White and immaculate fell the snow on the be- 
siegers, camped below; 

And Catherine from the parapet of her battlements 
looked down. 

The moonlight over Forli town lit up the trampled 
plain. 

The enemy's camp, each street and square spat- 
tered with blood. And high in air 

Catherine, with chin on breast, looked down, and 
reckoned up the slain. 

Her captains and her engineers stood in the 

shadows, still. 
Mournful and pale the cold moonlight gleamed 

upon ramp and tower that night. 
But troubled not the Countess' brows, knit by the 

Sforza will. 

[15] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

" The Daughter of Iniquity " [continued] 

A month of beating off assault since Imola flamed 

and fell 
And the town's signory, craven then, flung wide 

the gates to Caesar's men, 
Though Catherine lashed them with her scorn, and 

held the citadel. 



Here was no soft and feeble flesh — Lucrezia's 

golden shame. 
Here stood a woman steeled in grief, ravaged by 

sorrows past belief, 
A condottiere's bastard born, who bore the Sforza 

name. 



" On such a night as this," she thought. " The 

infamy came to pass 
When, as the carded flax took fire, three poigniards 

flashed upon my sire 
And the Duke Galeazzo fell, slain at Saint 

Stephen's mass." 

"On such a night as this," she thought, her thin 

lips tight with pain. 
** That apostate priest who blessed the bread 

whereon the assassins' blood was shed 
Watched for the ending of their work done in 
Saint Stephen's fane ! " 

[16] 



" THE DAUGHTER OF INIQUITY " 

" The Daughter of Iniquity " [continued] 

** Yet Caesar, Valentino, mark my single purpose 

here! 
Whatever may be dealt or done, I walk within the 

steps of one 
Who — though he sowed and reaped much shame 

— was never known to fear. 



" They wed me to a scurvy hound called richest 
prince in Rome, 

Who sought Lorenzo's overthrow — that brave, su- 
perb Magnifico ! — 

The loutish clown Riario, clerk in his uncle's home ! 



** Yet his foul deed in Florence done, with the 

base Pazzi's aid. 
Shows not so ill as fratricide, whence Naples, 

Caesar, spurned your pride ! 
The Repetta's bargeman knew what deed made 

that dark night afraid! 



" Under a shuddering sickly sun they brought the 

corpse to shore; 
And terrible bestial sounds of woe came screaming 

from Saint Angelo 
Where Alexander frothed in pain and clawed upon 

the floor. 

[17] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

" The Daughter of Iniquity ** [continued] 

" Remorse, in full consistory, he vowed — white lips 

afoam, — 
Repentance — ashes on his head ! . . . But living 

lust forgets the dead, 
And Giulia Bella sways him still at the old game 

in Rome. 



" With fifteen thousand Papal troops you dare all 

duchies then. 
The mercenary Swiss brigade and Louis' lancers for 

your aid? 
Shame of the Purple, monster Duke, lay on — ^bring 

up your men! 



" I have surmounted many a death, ere this risked 
all and won: 

Ten years of plot and counterplot, rebellion, mur- 
der, hate grown hot — 

So now I trust no broken reed — be it my elder son. 



** When rebels rose at Imola and killed the castel- 
lan. 

Think you I flinched? I rode all night, though 
great with child. The morning light 

Saw me still pacing forth and back before their 
barbican. 
[18] 



" THE DAUGHTER OF INIQUITY " 

" The Daughter of Iniquity " [continued] 

" O Feo said, * Tread not within ! Their swords 

are out to slay ! ' 
But ' Come — alone — to parley here ! * they cried. 

I entered without fear. 
They groveled ere one hour had passed. Theirs 

was none other way. 

" I faced the ride back: sixteen miles. I clung the 

saddle-horn. 
A ruddy mist before mine eyes mile after mile 

would dance and rise. 
The hoofs jarred *Home!* The hoofs .jarred 

* Home ! ' . . . Next day my child was born. 

** You Arab bastard of the Pope, — by the Blood, 

what do you here.'* 
Yonder in Rome your father plays with topaz, 

purple chrysoprase. 
Carbuncle and pink Indian pearl, half-slavering 

o'er such gear! 

" I saw your eyes, Caesar, your lips' full scarlet, 

your bronzed skin 
Under your velvet bonnet doffed. Aye, with an 

evil smile you scoffed. 
But Prince of Darkness though you be, your siege 

shall never win ! " 

• •••••• 

[19] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

" The Daughter of Iniquity " [continued] 

She lifted eyes and saw the stars bright-glistering 
on the night. 

She turned and strode among her peers, her cap- 
tains and her engineers, 

Into the castle, and, flambeau-lit, wound down the 
stair's steep flight. 

And like pale rose the New Year dawned. 

More furious the attack 
Leapt up without. She sate within, grinding her 

teeth. " You shall not win! ** 
In the stone hearth the red sparks danced against 

the chimney-back. 

See only! Was she girl again, entering the People's 

Gate; 
In gold-embroidered cloak arra,yed, in crimson satin 

and black brocade, 
'Mid festooned flowers and censers swung, riding 

through Rome in state? 

To grand Saint Peter's riding slow — her marriage 

day in Rome! 
The vision wavered on the air. Then, suddenly 

and vivid there. 
She saw against the arrassed wall — a different 

coming-home. 

[20] 



" THE DAUGHTER OF INIQUITY " 

" The Daughter of Iniquity " [continued] 

Stiffening silent into stone, her green-blue eyes 

looked through 
The wall — and saw the gala floats, and heard the 

populace split their throats 
While the artillery salvoes boomed. In prophecy 

she knew 



The Borgia's captives passing slow by that same 

massive gate, 
To crown his triumph. A glimpse of gray yonder, 

the broad Flaminian Way 
Stretched o'er the flat Campagna — north. Escape? 

Alas, too late! 



For on her wrists what fetters clanked! Her wild 

eyes, anguish-full. 
Cased up, and drooped, as wearily in that fell 

triumph, and heavily. 
She trod — the last, least slave of all — a hostage 

to the Bull! 



** No ! " She sprang up. ** A sortie then — at once ! 

That shall not be ! " 
Great shadows writhed upon the wall. She shouted 

for her seneschal. 
Paced with ground teeth, and knew her life in 

hopeless jeopardy. 

[21] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

" The Daughter of Iniquity " [continued] 

They burned the great carved wainscot even, be- 
fore the breach was made. 

She heard the roaring of the sack; turned on the 
tower-stair, beaten back, 

And, for an instant, wavered there — most desolate 
and afraid. 

Then, straight recovered, proud she rose. ** God 

knows what this may mean. 
But since I stand at last at bay, we all die — 'tis 

the only way ! " 
And she dispatched two trusted men to fire the 

magazine. 

They heard the dull concussion boom; but pre- 
science stifling speech 

Warned them of failure, through the din, and that 
the foe swarmed on and in 

Trampling along the corridors through one more 
widening breach. 

So, in the moated tower, at last the Borgia strode 

to find 
That perilous matron, stony-pale, standing like 

stone, — nor might prevail 
By words, until two skulking braves pinioned her 

from behind. 

[22] 



« THE DAUGHTER OF INIQUITY 



5> 



** The Daughter of Iniquity " [continued] 

And Yves d'Allegre could tell of her black year 

deep underground. 
Starving, for fear in cell to sup lest sweet white 

powder in some cup 
Dispatch her; sleepless, lest she be a corpse in 

Tiber found. 

Florence could tell what wrongs were wrought on 

a woman chained and lone 
Living the death beyond the dead. ** For there 

be things," she sometimes said, 
" That, an' I told them simply true, would turn 

the world to stone." 

So be it. I know she raised one son strong as her 

will was strong; 
That the Black Bands in time became through 

Italy a sign, a name 
Wherewith, and with their leader's fame, Romagna 

echoed long. 

In the wild days, in the wild days when the Bull 

gored Italy, 
Through black mischance and heavy grief, a woman 

held — beyond belief 
Against the Borgia's power and pride, one small 

lost seigniory! 



[23] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 



LEGEND OF MICHELOTTO 

So it befell, because the times were hard. 

This Michelotto, Captain of the Guard, 

Nigh to Cord Lane, in a vile drinking den 

Lingered the last of Caesar Borgia's men. 

Having found beyond Viana, in the vale. 

That stripped, stark blood-laced body, prone and 

pale, 
Fixed eyes and wolf-teeth glittering to the stars. 
Thus last he saw the Duke. So from all wars. 
All coil of camp and court, he fled Navarre 
To live at hazard by the outlier's star 
Scornful of every faction — old and grim. 

This was a night when musing fell on him. 
Secret in Rome, strayed lately from the sea. 

Sprawled on his lousy pallet it seemed that he 
Was multiplied in forms around the room 
Where on the floor a lantern made the gloom 
Even more invading by its little light. 
Some fifteen Michelottos were that night 
Regarding him from all sides of his bed. 
He clutched again the wineskin, and his head 
Turned slow each way; his eyes revealed their 
whites. 
[24] 



LEGEND OF MICHELOTTO 

Legend of Michelotto [continued] 

This was, perhaps, one of his troubled nights. 

For suddenly that raped Venetian bride, 

Caracciolo's, crouched by his bedside 

With hair dishevelled, eyes glaring wildly round. 

One feels it discommoding that the drowned 
From Tiber rise and walk, and come thus late; 
Nor, boy Astorre, should you, smiling, wait 
Blue by that window-grate the moon shines through. 
Those emaciated wraiths that crowd round you 
Forget how kindly you were used anon. 

"Ecco! These two were vilest. Smilest? Smilest 
Thou — thou — or thou, mine image.'* Fiends, be- 
gone ! " 
Thus, elbow-raised, the gulping sbirro cries. 
His coarse dark hair fallen tangled in his eyes. 

He turned again. His hand groped for the wine. 
There gleamed the poigniard-hilt *twixt neck and 

spine 
Driven home. It quivered yet. Ah, how the wan 
Forehead blood-smeared and dark eyes of this man. 
The wried mouth gaping to its gurgling cry. 
Called back the Ghetto midnight. . . . How 

they ply 
Dagger on dagger, till heavily he falls ! 
Sparks flit from flints. Beneath the bagnio walls 
Wheels the white charger, champing at his load. 

[25] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

Legend of Michelotto [continued] 

Truly, not thus a Captain General rode 
Ere this through Rome! 

So Gandia; let us hope 
That Don Giovanni, captain to the Pope, . . . 
But no, he glimmers yonder by the wall. 
He bears the head that was so swift to fall 
By that backhanded blow. 

The head smiles too ! 

The Borgia's will it was to run him through 
Because his wife was soft and weak of will. 

As for the poisoned sleepers, how they fill 

The earth-floored lean-to — many in their throes. 

The Mantuan archbishop, I suppose. 

Is he who lies the straightest, Giacomo's — 

The protonotary — is the stiff est pose. 

Gian the cardinal looks his pained surprise. . . . 

The sbirro shook his mane, strained limbs to rise. 
Sank back — and entered Don Alfonso's room. 

High-ceiled, that great apartment in the gloom. 
Save for the burning brazier, swarmed with night. 
The strangler with the bowstring craves no light 
However, and the fixed imperious glance 
Of the cloaked Duke precludes one look askance. 
Wail of all wails — wail that rings forever! 
[26] 



LEGEND OF MICHELOTTO 

Legend of Michelotto [continued] 

Veined eyeballs starting, with a huge endeavor. 
This Don Michele Coreglia heaved upright. 

Lying or sitting 'tis no better plight 

Even with the palms pressed tight against the eyes. 

Ramiro in Cesena square, the cries 

Of the rebels in their dungeon, beasts at bay ! 

Red — as the hands press eyeballs — red as they 
Who fell at Capua — is the swimming light. 
The shrieking of the nuns upbraids the night — 
Or is it ghastly singing, far away: 

All the power of earth and heaven 

You were given! 
Borgia, swords in Our Lady's heart 

Are sharp, are seven: 
Poigniards plunged to the bloody hilt. 

Red daggers driven! 

*' Yet," groaned this Michelotto, swaying now 
Upright, one arm across his streaming brow. 
His bare feet shuffling on the earthen floor, 
" Yet, thou dark man, I shall not see thee more. 
King of these kakodaimons — but a king! 
Ah, Caesar, Satan, sire, if this one thing 
Should pass — that thou couldst rise from earth and 
tell . . . ! " 

[27] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

Legend of Michelotto [continued] 

A voice spoke then. A voice said " Is it well 

To summon weary shadows out of Hell? " 

In armor red as blood he stood revealed 

The golden lilies quartered in his shield. 

The outstretched hand— oh grisly strangest 

thing ! — 
Flashed with the sapphire cardinalitial ring. 
Three-pointed flame licked up from foot to head. 

So Michelotto, with the dawn, lay dead. 



[28] 



THERE LIVED A LADY IN MILAN 



THERE LIVED A LADY IN MILAN 

There lived a lady in Milan 
Wrought for a madness unto Man, 
A fawn II Moro could not tame ; 
Her beauty unbedecked with pearls 
More than all Beatrice's girls, 
Her eyes a secret subtle flame. 

Brocade wherein her body dressed 

Was hallowed; flowers her footstep pressed 

Suspired incense ere they died. 

Her father mazed with alchemy 

Wrought in his cellar ceaselessly. . 

She lived in quiet, gentle pride. 

And by her garden in his hour 
Passed Leonardo, come with power 
From Florence. So he saw her face 
Bending above the shriveled stalks 
Of autumn on the garden walks. 
And Leonardo drank her grace. 

She was as if a sunset were 
With fresher colors, clearer air. 
And a more golden coil of cloud. 

[29] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

There Lived a Lady in Milan [continued] 

She was as if all citherns swooned 
With one rich harmony myriad-tuned, 
Haunting, enchanting, pure and proud. 

And Leonardo said, " Ladye, 

I know not what you do to me 

Who have and have not, seek nor find. 

The sea-shell and the falcon's feather, 

Greece and the rock and shifting weather 

Have taught me many things of mind. 

" My heart has taught me many things. 
And so have emperors, popes, and kings. 
And so have leaves and green May-flies ; 
Yea, I have learned from bird and beast. 
From slouching dwarf and ranting priest. 
Yet, in the end, how am I wise.'' 

" Though with dividers and a quill 
I weave some miracle of will, — 
Say, that men fly, — though I design 
For peace or war a thousand things 
Gaining applause from dukes and kings, — 
Though soft and deft my colors shine, 

*' Though my quick wit breed thunderbolts 
I may not loose on all these dolts. 
Things they are babes to comprehend, — 
Though from the crevice in stone or lime 
I trace grave outlines mocking Time, — 
I know when I am beaten, Friend ! 
[30] 



THERE LIVED A LADY IN MILAN 

There Lived a Lady in Milan [continued] 

" Say that there lived of old a saint 
Even Leonardo dared not paint. 
Even Leonardo dared not draw, — 
Too perfect in her breathing prime 
For colors to transmit to time 
Or quill attempt, — aye, ev'n in awe ! 

" Say this, cold histories, and say 
I looked not on her from this day 
Lest frenzied I destroy my art. 
O golden lily, — how she stands 
Listening! Beauty, — ah, your hands. 
Your little hands tear out my heart ! 

" Do you not know you are so fair. 
Brighter than springtime in the air ? 
What says your mirror to your mind ? " 
" Phantom," she whispered, " Do you plead 
With ghostly gestures? . . . Ah, indeed. 
Pity a lady deaf and blind 

" Since birth ! " . . . Then Leonardo turned 

Saluting, though the sunset burned 

In nimbus round her, — went his way 

In daze, repeating " God's defect. 

Even he ! — and masterpiece elect ! " 

He never saw her from that day. 



[31] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 



IL MORO IN LOCHES 

Oh sly and subtle light ! There ! At this hour. 

As ever, you gleam and linger. So I thrust 

This parchment hand of mine, whose withered 

power 
Mocks me, straight through your moted golden dust. 
Warm! It is warmth the pores feel, warmth that 

lingers 
So brief a space! StiflSy I twist my fingers. 
Shuddering to stand. Again my crayon marks 
Where now you quiver, cleaving my dungeon's 

darks. 

Light ! Fading — fading — ah, at last *tis gone ! 

Only this twilight now, by which I read 

My book of Heaven and Hell ; and so am drawn 

Up through the nine concentric heavens indeed 

Into the Empyrean, — yet dashed no less 

Through the nine circles of Hell's wretchedness. 

Certes, th* abyss of wailing gripes on me 

" Mute of all light, and bellowing like the sea." 

Yea, Florentine ! And mouthing shades are driven 
Across my vision, where none their God may name. 
Through inky air Francesca's form has striven, 
[32] 



IL MORO IN LOCHES 

11 Moro in Loches [continued] 

Speaking thy words, streaming discolored 

flame . . . 
Thy words I traced here on the stone, slow, slow 
In anguish: that '* there is no greater woe 
Than the remembering in misery 
Of the glad time " — those words that stifle me ! 



For, ah ! the face is not Ravenna's now. 

*Tis Isabella, with eyes that burn and burn. 

" Those injured souls ! " Dante, you cry. You bow 

Your face . . . Diavolo! I my face in turn 

Bow in my shaking hands. Aragonese, 

Begone! He sickened by natural disease. 

My nephew was not murdered. . . . There were 

things 
Of state — alliances — and French kings! 



She imputes poison. Bice, do you hear? 
Her ghostly hands hold up a poisoned fruit. 
In Pavia's castle grounds the leaves are sere. 
The sun hangs red. , , , You guess what you 

impute. 
Sorceress? Come, recall your weeping paries 
With that gap-mouthed and gargoyle-nosed King 

Charles, 
The drivelling idiot who mocked your pains 
And sickened a spirit still so proudly Spain's ! 

[33] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

II Moro in Loches [continued] 

" Murder, murder, most foul and secret murder, — 
Evil most foul even for times most foul ! " 
Again? again? How often have I heard her 
By day, by night, like some soft hooting owl 
Circling my cell in unsubstantial flight 
Through the long night, the ghastly, dreadful 

night ? 
Begone, I say! Gesu! As soft as lace 
The death-owFs wings are fluttering in my face. 

So ! Bring malvasia ! Wine — wine tonight ! 
Wine, and some woman's voice, — Cecilia's voice, — 
Or my Lucrece, the ferrionera tight 
Across her perfect brows, and there, for choice, 
A yellow Orient pearl silkily glistening; 
Half-pouted lips, as though her soul were listening 
To some far music. . . . But the shadow falls. 
As ever, around me from these mouldy walls ! 

Gloomy as galleries where the sentries standing 
With flickering lanterns saw me wildly fly 
That New Year's night, leaping from stair to land- 
ing 
To Bice's tower-room. The leaden sky 

Without snowed peacefully. In the great hall 
Courtiers and harlots whirled in festival 
To passionate music. But the page had said, 
" Her Grace is dying ! " I feared to find her dead. 
[34] 



IL MORO IN LOCHES 

II Moro in Loches [continued] 

All artful pomps that my Bramante wrought 
With Leonardo, — shows and dazzling lights, 
Feast and display, — flashed from my anguished 

thought. 
Bice was dying! Dio! That night of nights; 
The babe still-born; the monk with cross down- 
bending; 
The weeping women; *' Vico, this is the end- 
ing. . . . 
Forgive me, Vico! " Bice, do thou forgive 
Me ! For thy words are poigniards while I live, — 

Poigniards that turn and turn in the old wound. 
Yea, I am tricked, sanctissima, and sold 
To Satan, though God was with me as I swooned 
Through the black days when first your corpse was 

cold. 
Jennet and greyhound mourned you in those 

hours. . . . 
And how my city of the hundred towers 
Once welcomed in your gorgeous cavalcade, — 
And all Milan, decked as for masquerade! 

I met you with my knights. You shone with pearls. 
Heralds made martial music on our ride. . . . 
Brocades shake forth, the Viper flag unfurls. 
At the Castello I lift you down — my bride! 
And how you flew the falcon, tracked the fawn. 
Wild elf-girl, rippling canzons to the dawn, 

[35] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

II Moro in Loches [continued] 

Or, through the heat, your gilded tresses dried 
Atop your villa by the green water-side ! 

Ferrara's fairest — and both the sisters fair. 
The crown and kingdom of Duke Hercules ! 
In aureate satin and checlatoun, how rare ! 
Yet, in mere tags and rags rare as in these! 
Bice, you know I wed Cecilia then 
To Bergamini. . . . Yea! But men are men. 
" Merito e tempore " ? Naught, naught, I know. 
But I have suffered, and life would have it so. 

I know all that they whisper, all they shout; 
My brother Galeazzo's e\al fame. . . . 
Yet, turn to the Visconti, if you doubt 
Others were worse than bore old Muzio's name ! 
Matteo the Ghibelline .'^ Time makes him vague. 
What of Gian Galeazzo, that the plague 
Well ended, — Gian Maria, who, past all bounds. 
Tortured dumb beasts, fed human flesh to hounds.'* 

When my sire came, the Lombards blundered blind. 
Filippo tricked them as he tricked my sire. 
The Ambrosian Republic out of mind 
Put Naples and Venice, when the people's fire 
Later burned hottest. But the Sforza saw. 
Fought for the leadership and formed the law ! 
Demos will always babble " Bought and sold ! " 
My brother was a match for Charles the Bold. 
[36] 



IL MORO IN LOCHES 

II Moro in Loches [continued] 

Cruelty? Aye! Then Simonetta came 

With smooth conspiracies. What was the League ? 

We stood for Naples. Oh, you bicker " Shame ! " 

We matched intrigue with justified intrigue. 

The Pazzi war.^ But I was Bari soon. 

Playing to Bona a seductive tune 

At the meet time. It oped the garden door. 

So endeth Simonetta — shines the Moor! 



We were the first Greek printers, and my court 

Led art in Italy. The wild French claims 

Answer the rest. Oh, intrigue of a sort ! . 

One is not chary in a house in flames. 

And such all Italy was then : the Pope 

And Naples, and this one's plot and that one's 

hope. 
Bah! Was Trivulzio better? The people saw! 
** Viva il Moro ! " — for I gave them law ! 



Car'dossa, Bellincione, — match them then! 
Ambrogio de Predis, — all the best, — 
But Leonardo most, that man of men. 
Though he complained I never gave him rest. . 
I bend to Time and listen, and I hear 
Such murmur as, through that Dionysius' ear 
His craft contrived for me, the clamor grew 
From far-off rooms. This clamor quickens too. 

[37] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

II Moro in Loches [continued] 

They shout him with one voice, his second sight. 
His great " Cenacalo," his marvelous line, 
Contours absorbed as in a mist of light. 
Colors blent as by magic. . . . He was mine! 
Made clockwork monsters, labyrinths, — or in turn 
Lectured my sages past their power to learn, — 
Wrought armament or masque beyond all prize. 
Horsed my great father, limned Lucrezia's eyes ! 

Make hubbub, Time! . . . Ah, Schattenhalb, 

vile Swiss, 
Again your fingers twist me round to see, — 
Passing beneath the pike. You leer, " But this — 
This is no priest. Bring shackles! This is he! " 
La Tremouille smiled. So was Novara taken 
Through Alpine traitors, and all my splendor shaken 
About my ears. And now I rot and rot 
In this vile tomb. They feign to know it not. 

They are so suave, these French! And Borgia 

ramps 
Abroad, and Florence raves as when that priest 
I hated so stirred all to warring camps ; 
And here this Louis spills tournament and feast 
About the land, betrothing his dear daughter. 
Venice and Genoa, by either water, 
Suffuse his eyes with tears of simple greed. . . • 
And Maximilian still has time, indeed. . . , 
[38] 



IL MORO IN LOCHES 

// Moro in Loches [continued] 

Who was that gay Burgundian ? Ah, Commines ! 
That was at Asti, when I met King Booby. 
A sharp-eyed noble! Indeed the man had been 
Months in this very fortress. What a ruby 
Galeazzo gave him once at the Castello! 
They say he has retired, the clever fellow, 
To write his memoirs. As I hear it reckoned 
Best wits agree he'll be Plutarch the Second. 

Weariness ! All my thoughts are weariness. 
They bring me food? They serve me with such 

care! 
Even allowed me friends in my distress 
Once. Yet they've grown much stricter with fresh 

air 
Of late. And so all that I have to do 
Is arabesque these walls with P and Q 
And pictures to drive Leonardo wild, — 
Twist on my pallet, and babble like a child. 

The Sforza blood in me is sapped indeed! 
Was this the Moor — this once my arrogance ? 
See, my mouth dribbles. I quiver like a reed. 
Indeed I think the oubliettes in France 
Can cap Milan's. " The Condottiere laughs 
And with his sword writes blood-red epitaphs ! " 
So once I trolled the soldier-song. . . . Ah! 

Keys! 
Well, Messer Scowl, what viands, if you please ? 

[39] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 



NICCOLO IN EXILE 

The wineshop smells of grapes ! Castniccio, 

I thirst! Ah, and a salutation now 

To thee, good miller ! Ha, bland Ambrosio, 

Thou golden butcher, — the heat hath marked thy 

brow 
Red as thy beeves. News ? By the Blood, I vow 
'Tis not * good day,* but ill, for not a springe 
Within my little wood, beneath the bough. 
Hath caught one wren. Crops? By an old 

wound's twinge 
I think 'twill rain. The cards! Aye! Pour the 

wine! 
Faugh, but the pack is greasy, — yet 'twill serve ! 
(So I forget his face, Duke Valentine, 
And slacken fortune's fardels, nerve by nerve. 
From off my mind. . . . I'll let the sunset shine 
Full in their eyes, my fingers swift to swerve.) 

He cheats! Yea, I cry cheat! I saw that one! 
Nay, peace, Ambrosio, with that doughty roar, — 
Merely, next time, eschew the crudely done ! 
Have I not been Borgian ambassador.^ 
Peace ! Let me tell how Heliogabalus swore 
Once on a time. . . . Nay, seat thee; hark the 

humor! 

[40] 



NICCOLO IN EXILE 

Niccolo in Exile [continued] 

Chutt, miller, what's a small coin less or more? 
As for the old Etolians, they rumor. . . . 
Rare drollery, eh? I'faith, a few days since 
That quaint folk-custom gat an illustration : 
My swineherd's wife. . . . (New chapter: How 

a Prince 
Should cater to the Vile for reputation ! 
Yea, murderer of Ursini and Vitelli, 
Borgia, still might'st thou learn of Machiavelli !) 

So, at this last, good-night ! Nay, I must home. 
Good-night ! 

What misty moonlight ! There'-s the spark 
Of fitful fireflies. Fields are not like Rome 
Where steel strikes glittering out from alleys dark, 
Sunlight discovering the white and stark 
Body of grief. No, fields are friendly faring 
For velvet Secretaries. Far watch-dogs bark. 
But flower-scents rise, and I enjoy my airing. 
So to the ancients home, and home to thee. 
Soft Marietta! That man all falls above 
Is set who hath for his indemnity 
Against fate*s ravage, two treasures, books and love. 
That butcher can*t play cricca. I fleeced him then. 
As for the stratagems of those oven-men — / 



[41] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 



RENEGADE 

II Quattrocento 

With rumbling cannon, rippling pennon and hal- 

berts bright in the sun 
On war's way — god Mars' way 
The clamorous armies roam. 
Hot destriers shake their manes and ramp at rumor 

of siege begun 
And high carracque and galleasse swing towering 

through the foam. 
Venice is out with all her fleets, the Borgia's never 

slept in sheets 
This long while, this wrong while, this black and 

villainous tide, — 
But drunk with wine of June today from all 

Romagna I'm away. 
Up, up through oak and ilex grove to lose the 

world I ride. 



Put faith in your misericorde, in parchment, rack or 

rope 
Or wind your horn beyond the Alps to march 

against the Pope, — 
[42] 



RENEGADE 

Renegade [continued] 

God of the sun, who made the moon drip golden 

honey such nights in June, 
What dark hearts, these stark hearts, — how lost, 

how lost to hope! 

They're staggering, brawling through their camps. 

Their torches splash the stones 
With red gleams, with dread gleams 
Where blood pools deep the mire. 
Their captains bellow bawdy songs to drown the 

dying's groans 
And every southern vineyard glints an evil bivouac 

fire. 
Yea, Sforza, dream you hold Milan — Este, Fer- 

rara, — if he can; 
Let every tyrant sweat and curse and plot and 

fume and rage; 
Far, far above you toward the moon my gelding 

climbs this night in June 
To find and pluck the golden rose, to clasp an 

heritage ! 

O joy that never your whole endeavor of plots and 
wars could win ! 

For soft — there — aloft there, through glimmer of 
falling bloom — 

A light that shines through tangled vines, a star 
the dusk within. 

The porch of even, the door to Heaven, — a shep- 
herd's wattled room; 

[43] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

Renegade [continued] 

A face for memories, soft dark hair, bright eyes 

to heal the heart! 
(O roar your victories, boast your pomps and 

grasp your golden prize !) 
Here — moonlight lies along the floor. O love, and 

here thou art. 
Sacred and ghostly in the gloom as summer's slow 

moonrise ! 

This still night, this strange night, its mystery so 

deep 
That far away the chaos fades, the summoning 

drums are gone 
As still I lie, and only hear her breathing in her 

sleep 
While high in heaven the silent stars shine on^ — 

shine on — shine on. . . , 



[44i] 



BOURBON'S LOVE 



BOURBON'S LOVE 

x\t Monza is the Iron Crown 
That tempted France to Lombardy, 
And Valentina of Milan-town 
Nestled among the fleur-de-lis 
The crested Viper; and the wine 
Of lore and art in Italy 
Lured on the line called Angevine 
Between Vesuvius and the sea. 



Louis the Spider held aloof 

From the new sorceress of the south; 

But wittold Charles would put to proof 

His claim, and Naples kissed his mouth 

A bitter kiss, a rueful kiss. 

Whence the twelfth Louis gat no bliss 

Since the Great Captain scourged him thence 

And Ferdinand dropped all pretense. 



The King of England took to wife 
An aunt of Charles the Emperor 
New-risen in a world of strife 
With kingdoms than all kingdoms more 
From Flanders unto far Peru, 

[45] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

Bourbon's Love [continued] 

With Spain and Germany thereto. 

The Great Child took the throne of France 

And there was bloody work to do, 

Montpensier was the greatest lord 
Of all his realm. Saint Louis' blood 
Ran in his veins. The folk adored 
The Lord of Bourbon. He withstood 
For France and Francis many a foe. 
Louise of Savoy brought him low. 
At last, to sequestrate his lands, — 
A jilted harlot, frenzied so. 

Her " Caesar " wore the crown at last. 
She served him, with her Marguerite. 
The bitter strife with Anne was past. 
She left an empire at his feet 
Since Marignano shot the skies 
With blazing portent, gaudy dyes. 
Mother and son were made of lies 
And Bourbon met them as was meet. 

This only tells what surmise tells 
Of a most desperate soul, 
Since beneath courtly-gilded shells 
Most furious oceans roll, 
And all stands not on history's page. 
For men are molded by their age 
But lose their loves and gnash and rage 
Withdrawn from out the whole. 
[46] 



BOURBON'S LOVE 

Bourbon's Love [continued] 

** You shall be false and I be true/* 

The Marguerite of Marguerites 

Sighed to great Bourbon in a dream 

As his war-steed forded a stream 

In Italy, and drowsy grew 

His brain, with marches and retreats. 

" And yet — such dark and tangled thread 

Love weaves to gold, through dearth and dread ! 

Fate clasped — then struck their hands apart. 

To Francis, king of lechery. 

His royal sister's loyal heart 

Clove, despite lies and treachery. 

But Bourbon's pride could not abide 

At last his grim mischance. 

His sword was thrust in Bayard's side. 

As it was fated to betide. 

When his sword turned on France, 

Yet he turned sword against his lord 

And fought for Charles of Spain. 

His destrier's back became his home. 

(A second Alaric at Rome 

You read his hated name 

In history!) But do you see 

Her face that left him never: 

The Valois' Pearl, the star of France, 

Whose wondrous pilgrims to Senance 

Live on in prose forever .f* 

[47] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

Bourbon's Love [continued] 

She, who could write with jeweled pen 

The intrigue of her time. 

The light and shade and colors all. 

The languor and the festival, 

The bloodshed and the grime, — 

She, faithful to that swine of self, 

Francis, men should have slain, — 

Aye, even to standing to his lie. 

The blackest one in history, — 

Knew she not Bourbon's pain? 

She saw the panache of his plumes. 

The glitter of his greaves 

And cuisses, 'gainst the paneled wall 

Where truly stood no man at aU; 

Or through the arbor leaves. 

Where only sun-motes danced in gold. 

She saw his darkling eyes. 

His heavy casque. He spurred his steed 

Down a dark valley, equerried 

By death in royal guise. 

Meanwhile the Admiral Bonnivet, 
Who would have brought her down, 
Made leg at mirrors, flung his fling, — 
He who lost Francis everj'^thing 
Through gross, half-witted flattering 
At siege of Pavia-town. 
[48] 



BOURBON'S LOVE 

Bourbon's Love [continued] 

But Bourbon spurred. She dreamed he heard 

Her voice say, low and clear. 

With thrilling trust in every word 

She breathed against his ear: 

" One thread throughout the dark design, — 

One fiery thread — your love and mine! " 

love indeed — to throb and burn 
In that most thwarted hour! 

In proud Toledo or Madrid 

1 think it was not always hid. 
While Francis lay in tower. 

A glance, a handclasp, and the thought 

Of Amboise and their youth 

Come back — the glittering Loire below, 

St. Hubert's chapel, all the glow 

Of days when there was truth 

Before the Regent asked her price — 

She and Du Prat, her snake. 

Who laid the rack, who turned the vise. 

And watched the proud heart break! 

Though Bourbon strode the Roman road 

He fell in silvered mail, 

In days of dark antiquity 

*Fore walls of soft iniquity 

He was not born to scale. 

The weak Pope chattered in his tower; 

[49] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

Bourbon's Love [continued] 

And history turns wroth 
And brands the Condottiere's shame 
And sets him side by side in fame 
With Alaric the Goth! 

But, as he stood within his tent 

The night before the sack, 

As his dark brows in anguish bent 

On his accursed track 

South and still south, and what it meant. 

Borne by his starved wolf-pack. 

Until great Rome in moonlight lay. 

Whence none might turn them back, — 

There as he stood, she seemed to stand 

Just past the torches' light. 

With darkness upon either hand 

And nothing but the night. 

" Transfiguring still the whole design. 

One thread of gold — your love and mine! 

So the embattled halberdiers 
Stirred where they bivouacked. 
Across the camp the sleeping spears 
Murmured if aught attacked. 
A restless presage fanned the camp 
At love's last ghostly call. 
War-horses whinneyed all astamp. 
Stars trembled over all. 
[50] 



BOURBON'S LOVE 

Bourbon's Love [continued] 

And Bourbon raised his arms and said, 

" It is the end, my friend. 

Ah, Marguerite, when I am dead, 

I may have love to spend 

Who here had only hate to wreak. 

My dear, my only dear! 

Press then your cheek against my cheek 

And set your bosom here ! " 

Upon his brow a warm breath seemed. 

Seemed arms about his neck. 

His head bowed forward as he dreamed. 

Beyond all battle-wreck. 

Past Marignano, Pavia, or any earthly victory. 

Some strange unravelling of knots. 

Of the world's plots and counterplots. 

Hint of Time's valedictory; 

For on his heart she seemed to rest 
Where poor Suzanne had lain; 
And there was peace within his breast 
And peace within his brain. . . . 

While Love stood singing at the loom. 
Weaving forever dreams and doom! 



[51] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 



THE TRIUMPHANT TUSCAN 

To Frances Rose Benet. 

Dark — all is dark and cold ! No light is here 
Save this the candle in my helmet gives. 
The paper helmet of an old, old soldier 
Who toiled at trench and earthwork on the heights 
Of Florence ... it was very long ago. 
And now I chip and chisel through the dark. 
This sputtering goat-fat taper on my head. 
In a cold gloomy house of rats and spiders 
Off Trajan's forum. 

Almost two years back 
The Council passed upon my wall design 
To stop the infection from that filthy pit 
Beneath the column, made when Paul the Third 
Demolished round its base, and excavated 
To the old forum's level. Of course they still 
Do nothing. And they dare to say that I 
Procrastinate over the dome of Peter* s! 

Ugh! The miasma's round me like a mist. 

Night. The Campagna's ruined aqueducts 
Shine in the moon; the Coliseum lies 
Ghostly and white under the sky of March; 
But there is stir in Rome. Young Giovanni 
[52] 



THE TRlUMrHANT TUSCAN 

The Triumphant Tuscan [continued] 

Comes to be Cardinal. This nepotismo 
Flourishes still. I can hear them. " Palle ! 

Palle!" 
The coaches and the horsemen and the crowds 
That quiet a little now. I have not stirred 
For the new pomp; I hear them in my mind. 
How many times ! Laborious life creeps on 
Under the riot and the pageantry. 
The war, the jubilation, and the waste. 

Yet Night remembers Day, for Day knew how, 

Affianced of the sunlight, tristfully 

She came along the cloisters; or we paced 

Among the piazza's soaring colonnades ; 

Or in the garden of San Silvestro sat 

On a stone bench against an ivied wall 

In shade of laurel bushes — Rome beneath. 

She like her juniper, inviolate ever 

In claustral peace from all encircling storms, — 

With the white vision of the great church redeemed 

Borne in her breast, and Pavia's sharp disaster 

An old dulled pain ! Yes, a great general. 

Faithful till death — yet with no faith for her 

Who could have raised him . . . 

Ah, now my bitter heart 
Like some strange heavy fruit submits itself 
To the grinding pestle and colander of God 
Whence, crushed, bled forth and strained, a thin 
small wine 

[53] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

The Triumphant Tuscan [continued] 

Of sacred numbers drips ! I gird myself 
For heron-patience unto the agony's end. 
My Adorata^ my sibyl from that isle 
Of oleanders, Ischia in the sea, 
Where once old Epomeo's mountain-height 
Guarded your singing soul! You also bore 
The weight of this interminable life, 
Suflfered, endured, and conquered at the last. 

Yes, I am very old. I have known it all; 
All ! — the great edifice that seems in dreams 
To rise divine out of the mind of man 
Till its proportions shoulder back the sun. 
The ideal grandeur. Ah, so to build, and be 
Some conquering Brunelleschi of the soul's 
Magnificent cathedral, domed and lanterned 
With gold stolen from God ! Yet, as she taught. 
Comparing Love to an entablature 
That we had pored on once amid the ruins: 
(While I supplied her terms of architects!) 
Passion's the cornice, nobility the frieze. 
Humility the architrave whereon 
All rests — a strong, erect humility . . . 
So apse and aisle and nave of the soul's church 
Must breathe that spirit, where the last is first. 
Humility . . . how knaves misunderstand 
The slandered term ! I have raged my life awry 
In art's own passionate humility. 
But to whom among these little mouthing men, 
[54] 



THE TRIUMPHANT TUSCAN 

The Triumphant Tuscan [continued] 

These harassing insects of my everyday. 

Needs must I yield ? To Nanni ? He who yearns 

To be chief architect, — that fool who plots 

So childishly against me? Three years back 

The old ^milian Bridge they snatched from me, 

(Puling that kindly they would spare my age 

The imposition^ — and my over-caution !) 

Why, three years back, in the next inundation 

It laughed at yokel Nanni's strengthening 

And strewed his mock foundations on the flood. 

Have men no minds? There were great spirits 

once. 
Some I have seen — one, never seen, have known : 
The man who hated tyranny, as I; 
The true republican, as I have been; 
The immortal spirit, as I — could never be. 

As where high mountains form their watershed 
Disparting equally the rains of heaven. 
So Dante's spirit soared, and so baptized 
His friends or enemies with lucific song 
Pouring from the steep summit of his soul. 

But me they shackled to a sepulcher 

All my life long, — Popes, pesterers. Cardinals, 

Dukes of Urbino! 

Forty statues planned. 
As many basso-relievos to be cast 
In bronze, and four fa9ades — a mausoleum 
Truly heroic. For my reproach eternal 

[55] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

The Triumphant Tuscan [continued] 

Sits Moses in Saint Peter's of the Chains. 

What though Mantova cried, " Why, this alone 

Does superb honor to his memory ! " 

When the thrice-changed contracts dwindled to the 

last; 
Six statues down to three; when Eaffaello 
Of Montelupo, for fifteen hundred ducats. 
Had wrought his prophet, sibyl, and Madonna, — 
And Maso, the Pope on the sarcophagus, — 
And bad art crowned my single inspiration 
Achieved through all the thwarting years' de- 
rision, — 
I felt the heart within me sink like stone. 
Though the chapel waited my great Judgment, and 
*' Now," they cried, " you are free ! ** 

They say the Jews 
In Rome have flocked to look upon their leader. 
Speechless with adoration, praising me. . . , 
Though evil rumors insinuate themselves 
Through chinks in my mind's armor, such as one 
That leers " Why, 'tis the Ludovisi satyr 
Transferred to marble ! " 

But, Dio mio ! who heeds 
Thorn-crackling such as that? Let them go to 
And bask in II Perugino's cow-like masks. 
Who mistaught Raphael; nay, 'tis the same 
Old threadbare charge I know not fair proportions, 
Grace as they understand it! They know not 
[56] 



THE TRIUMPHANT TUSCAN 

The Triumphant Tuscan [continued] 

That life is agony. " Too much anatomy ! " 
Yes; Yes indeed; Verily; only I groan 
To think upon such grandeur as I planned 
Eked out with gimcracks. Free? I turned away 
From final contemplation of the Moses 
Drowned in despair, 

A lifetime's span ago 
I climbed a spur of Etruscan Apennine 
Above Carrara, where we worked the quarries 
Like mad eight months for marble . . . fifteen 

years 
Ere Leo drove me from the Carrarese 
To Pietrasanta, and the angered servants 
Of Marquis Massa, and the mariners. 
Blocked all my ships from Genoa to Pisa, 
Forced me to turn road-builder in the end 
And bridge the swampy plains with driven piles — 
Whence I fell ill at Seravezza there. 
The Arno shrank and dried, my columns broke. 
Consigned to Florence ; and how I cursed the Tomb, 
Always that gray colossal incubus ! . . . 
But my mind wanders. I was thinking of 
My thirtieth year, that day I stood and gazed 
From the mountains above Carrara across the blue 
Ligurian Sea. Far down below me wound 
A road, with silly miniature white oxen 
Hauling their load. The whip-crack of their driver 
And his voluble voice were little diminislied sounds 

[57] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

The Triumphant Tuscan [continued] 
Through the still noon. The puffy drifting cloud 
Moving along the road seemed hardly more 
Than that hidden dust I filliped from my palm 
The day I feigned to pare my David's nose 
For Soderini. 

Blue sky — the sea below ! 
I stood and thought, what sea-mark might not rise 
Immaculate on this mountain? Thus, or thus 
Disposed, — why not some glorious Pieta 
Eluding schoolmen's definitions? Yes, 
The mountain-mother. Nature, — in her lap 
The tortured limbs relaxed of breathing Life 
Exempt at last from the long agony, 
Quieted by this vast mysterious sky 
That broods forever over us, and should lend 
Its elemental purity and pity 
To her deep immortal gaze. I felt the stone 
Already flaking from my flying chisel 
Seized by a spirit stronger than my own. 
As in the days when I despised clay models 
And flung myself against some massive block 
With fury— what they call my " terribleness." 
The Voice of the seaward scarp, I saw it grow 
Forth from the stone, an immemorial 
Astonishment to all the future's ships 
Whose sailors, stricken dumb, should drop the rope. 
Forget the sail, and stare, and bow their heads. 
Aye, bend their knees — adrift in waking trance' 
[58] 



THE TRIUMPHANT TUSCAN 

The Triumphant Tuscan [continued] 

The moment passed. I sbAuibled down the moun- 
tain 
Moaning, " Oh, for the eyes of Uriel 
To see how all these leaguering ambitions 
Of the heart my triumph ! " Once more the mo- 
ment passed. 

Why, visions — and I have seen them — such as that 
Which took me in the garden of my house 
In the first year of Leo's rule, one Autumn; 
The marvelous three-rayed meteor that I drew 
With pen and colors, — one ray turned east and one 
O'er Rome, and one toward Florence, — yisions, I 

think. 
Are no more strange (though less accountable) 
Than these inward dreams that grow and fill the 

mind 
Belittling life to a small mire for flies, 
Not men, to buzz about ! As proud — such dreams — 
As, for one instance, that glorious second sight 
Investing the bargaining Bernadone's son. 
Saint Francis, when he raised his eyes and saw 
A crucified seraph in the Apennine. 
Can one not image the feebly thundering wings. 
The iridescent glory, the wild heaven-grief. 
The torsions of those torn celestial limbs. 
The grandeur glowing through such clouds of pain ! 

But, Father, you wished a sound wool-stapling son, 

[59] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

The Triumphant Tuscan [continued] 

No " mere stone-mason " ! ... So, there's 

Lorenzo's garden 
And the mask of that old fami whose teeth I 

pulled . . . 
Five ducats a month, a violet-colored mantle. 
My father's customs-ofEce, — Girolamo 
Thundering from the pulpit of Duomo, — 
The Brancacci chapel, and my broken nose ! 
Helter-skelter, out tumble the memories, — 
All heaped as offerings to Masaccio . . . ah. 
And there again — our great Poliziano, 
With his beaked nose, full eye, and scintillant mind. 
Who heartened me (with talk of Thessaly 
And how Peirithous and the Lapiths fought 
The galloping Centaurs all a summer night) 
To work my first relief ! He laughed indeed 
On being able to discover only 
One centaur — dead — in all the striving throng. 

I wonder, could Lorenzo see me now. 
Would the poetic despot set his hand. 
As once, upon my shoulder, and with converse 
Of art show me from out his cabinets 
Some strange fifth century carnelian scarab 
Grgeco-Phcenician, or a Grecian seal 
Presenting the quadriga ? I well recall 
One signet of exceptional intaglio: 
'Twas Heracles and the Nemean lion, 
Cufic calligraphy on gray sardonyx. . . . 
[60] 



THE TRIUMPHANT TUSCAN 

The Triumphant Tuscan [continued] 

Such music and tourneys, as if all life were 

spring,— 
Such feasts, such trysts, such jovial wicked wit. 
Withal such learning and culture: jongleurs singing 
The triumphs of love, and, in some high cool cham- 
ber, 
Pico, our Phoenix, arguing Arabic 
Or the haughty Chancellor explaining style ! . . . 
With all the great I sat at board in hall. 
Philologists, translators, poets, scholars. 
Most clear I see one exquisite spring evening. 
The sky was heliotrope and softest saffron. 
We were met in Pico's villa, on the slope ' 
Of Fiesole, — orange, olive, and vine 
Around us. Far beneath, the red-tiled roofs 
And domes of Florence, — beyond it, Arno's 

meadows. 
Many were gathered. One was the Greek savant 
Demetrius Chalcondvlas ; another Linacre 
The English doctor. Everyone reclined 
'Mid wax-lights winking under the spreading trees. 
Poliziano sang a gay ballata — 
One of his own, set to a mandoline. 
Lorenzo presided in an arrassed chair. 
Goblets of wine, chestnuts, and sugar-tarts. 
Almonds and other sweetmeats passed about. 
Ficino, the enthusiast, swam in words. 
Some near to heresy, as he expounded 

[61] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

The Triumphant Tuscan [continued] 

The Infinite First Cause, — most bravely striving 
To reconcile his Plato with Saint Paul 
To the youthful Pico, marvelously wise. 
Whose forehead leant on one delicate pale hand. 
His brown hair falling low, his gray eyes 

stern. . . . 
Soft from the pine-clad, heather-honeyed hills. 
Girdling our City of Flowers, floated the sound 
Of faint far music; stately overhead 
Swam forth the white processional of the stars. 

Aye, once again beneath the palace walls 

The masquers revel, girls dance the carola; 

Or through the market-place I stroll, and pause 

To watch some smiling contadina pass 

Basket on arm, whose firm-set elbow cocked 

Suggests a hard bit of foreshortening. 

The night comes cool after the stifling heat 

Of summer day — asimmer with the plague 

That took its toll so often. In the broad square 

Patterned with moonlight, burgher story-tellers 

Chuckle and quip. . . . Nay! There's the 

tramp of horse 
In sunlight; the Magnifico returns 
From bowered Careggi with his retinue. . . . 

Ah, Florence, Florence! And once, as / returned 
From San Miniato where our falconets 
Held off the siege, I marked upon the roof 
[62] 



THE TRIUMPHANT TUSCAN 

The Triumphant Tuscan [continued] 

Of Santa Croce, musicians seated playing, 

And, on the piazza, two squads of whites and 

greens 
Battling at calcio for the football goal. 
Thus light you held disaster, thus you lifted 
A laughing face to doom, insurgent people, — 
As Niccolo named you, ** vain and childish still ! " 
Yet with nobility and fortitude 
His sad embittered nature might not see. 
But blunderers, blunderers! For the Apennine 

gorges 
Had you sent forth but a few thousand men 
Instead of lavishing such craven gold 
You had turned Bourbon back — who knows? — and 

saved 
The sack of Rome and your own ravishment. 
True that France paltered, true that Venice quaked, 
Francesco Maria snapped like a broken reed 
And Clement swayed to every gust that blew; 
The muddle around Milan seemed worse than fate ; 
Yet, Florence, thou ** most beauteous daughter of 

Rome " 
As Dante hailed thee, — Florence, Caesar's camp. 
Where was thy strong hand to save Italy 
That hour? Did thy banner not bear the badge 
Of a great free people — not a ship of fools ? 
Too late! The viper Baglioni lurked 
Warm in your bosom. Again I hear the shout 

[63] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

The Triumphant Tuscan [continued] 

" Viva Gesu Cristo, nostro Re ! " 

Leafy San Miniato gay with villas 

Felt axe and hatchet fall. Upon the tower 

I placed my wool-bales. With a moody mind 

I carved that winged Victory for our camp — 

Demolished by the victors ... all too late! 

Rash hope of France — ^the great betrayal — soon 
Overthrow, rapine, sack, — and Florence dead. 
There stand the figures in the sacristy 
Of San Lorenzo, showing forth my mind. 
Who cared for the younger Medici? I carved 
Florence the warrior, gazing on her ruin; 
Florence the young and somewhat specious knight 
Of times of peace, luxurious and weak. 
There Day and Night, Twilight and Dawn display 
My various resignation or despair 
For her. I hid my grief. I came to Rome, 
Never to look upon my Florence more. 

Was that a knock? This cramp gets in my legs 
And I can't move. The dogskin hose beneath 
My stockings, and these cordovan leather boots. 
Don't aid my sudden shifting either. So! 
Now another candle. Hola! I am coming! 

You, Giorgio? Giorgio, Giorgio, is it you! 
A thousand welcomes, friend ! Come in ! Come in ! 
That is good f eltro you are clad in, friend ; 
[64] 



THE TRIUMPHANT TUSCAN 

The Triumphant Tuscan [continued] 

The weather still is sharp, though hardly yet 
The time for malaria from the Pontine marshes. 
Still, it is not the clean air of Casentino — 
Especially — but I see you in the flesh! 
And so you brought the Cardinal to Rome? 
Ah, what a jewel in your velvet cap 
That is — no, that I meant, secures your feather. 
Such a cape and tabard — and what riding-boots 
Spacious and spurred! Why yes, of course you 

came 
Just as you are — to see the old man, eh? 
Sit down! How did you manage to give the slip? 
May I put up your horse? He can munch straw 
Beside my chestnut pony. On foot, you say? 
Again, sit down! This armchair by the fireplace. 
That? Oh, stupidity, I've dropped the candle. 
That's my Pieta — no-o, 'tis not yet finished. 
You saw it before. 'Tonio! Where's the man? 
Ah, Giorgio, now my rare JJ rhino's gone . . . 
His wife Cornelia loved him not as I ... 
His death and my brother Sigismondo's death . . . / 
But this is scurvy talk. Come, take some wine ? 
Somewhere I've wine from Florence — trebbiano. 
(Even better than water from the Trevi fountain!) 
Cheese? Figs? That orcio of olive oil 
Might freshen us a salad. Say you ? No, 
You've dined. Well then, tell me the gossip now. 
Your journey? Did your sumpter-mules kick loose, 

[65] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

The Triumphant Tuscan [continued] 

Your guards fall into drinking? What's the ac- 
count ? 
Get on with it — Lorenzo's madrigal 
Had it, you know, that youth is sweet, but flies. 
Speak, or my youth will leave me all too soon, 
I fear, — this garrulous second youth of mine ! 
I was thinking of these later Medici; 
At least that bastard mulatto . . . Me perdone, 
Giorgio! One forgets. But Cosmo seems 
Better. Ah, all those letters that you wrote me, 
And he ... I feel the honor sensibly. 
Yet, as I answered, I must not give up 
Seventeen years hard labor, while the breath 
Is in my body — to see it hacked apart 
By fools. When it is finished, it is finished. 
Then let them raze it. I'll be safely dead. 

What's that you say? Such a triumph? My 

catarrh 
Affects my hearing slightly. Wild rejoicing 
Along your journey? Ah, but did they truly? 
With olive garlands on their heads, white robes. 
And branches in their hands ... a banquet 

too! 
Yes, I have eaten prugnoli, and the wine 
Of Monte Alcino is good. You live on plush. 
My Giorgio, these days. I am glad the Duke 
Has such a devoted servant. 
[66] 



THE TRIUMPHANT TUSCAN 

The Triumphant Tuscan [continued] 

So-o? Now this 
Must be the kernel of the nut. You say — ? 
I know — Girolamo's olden Council Hall. 
The Duke greatly desires my own opinion.'* 
Well, we'll exchange our models, Giorgio mio. 
Tomorrow — come in the forenoon — we will ride 
To Saint Peter's, and you shall see the wooden one 
That my divine, celestial Cavaliere 
Has at last prevailed upon my laziness 
To finish, and ease, says he, my aching head. 
Though there's an outline of the dome I drew 
Upon the marble floor of Saint Paul's — but that 
I fear is not so orderly! Now see. 
For example, here's the cartoon showing the plan. 
The Greek Cross. I eked it out with various sheets 
Pasted together. Do you like it, eh.'' 
But, for tomorrow, we'll see that great antique 
The Belvedere torso. They say there's a Hercules 
By Lysippus, that he made for Alexander 
To carry upon the march, — a table figure 
The posture's worked from. 

Ah, now I blush ! You make 
Too much of me in your most excellent book. 
" In contempt of envy, in despite of death ..." 
Tragically I sit for hours and try 
To sprout the wings to match; I, who they say 
Derive all anatomy from Pollaiuolo, 
All vigor from Signorelli. We-el, *tis true 

[67] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

The Triumphant Tuscan [continued] 
I do commend the latter's compositions. 
Something from Orvieto's in the Judgment, 
Have you noticed? 

But let me bow to you in turn 
And thank you deeply for your thoughts of me 
In these last years, — sending Bartoli's book 
That " Defence of Dante," — that was when I fled 
From Rome to the mountains, from the Spanish 

troops. 
Those autumn weeks in oak and olive wood 
Verily saved my life; and I can say 
For once at least in my harassed career 
My solitude brought peace, and faith again. 
The sacrilege and simony of old Rome 
Passed, and the wars passed, and the blood of 

Christ 
Sold with both hands ; the splendor and the shame. 
The world dropped from my back for that short 

space. 
But you can understand. You have often spoken 
Of your Camaldoli among the firs. 
Among the mountains, where you healed your heart 
After Alessandro's murder, — among the snows 
Where gentle rivulets threaded from cell to cell 
Of that high Hermitage. I am recluse too. 

How is the gentle wife? I joyed to hear 
You were rewarded for your ruined farms 
In the valley of Chiana. Oh these wars! 
[68] 



THE TRIUMPHANT TUSCAN 

The Triumphant Tuscan [continued] 

For my part I declare I hate all men 
Who would begin with evil, — that is, murder. 
To bring forth good. It is a great presumption 
To dare kill anyone. The man who said, 
" I am no statesman, but an honest man." 
Spoke truth indeed. 

\^Tiat store is in your book 
Of artists. And I have upon my conscience 
That tilt with Leonardo. Yes, I said 
Rude things to Leonardo, and I thought him 
Utterly insincere. But, as for casting 
His Sforza — what is casting, after all. 
My Julius made a better cannon so ! 
And yet I well remember it was Francia 
Praised the Bologna statue, as it was. 
For the casting most. And how that angered 

me! 
Francia was suave like all his suave Madonnas, 
Too smooth enameled. 

Yes, I have had my wrongs, 
The Sangallists, and Bramante — though you state 
The case too strongly there — and now this oaf. 
This bungler, Nanni ! But let us speak of other 
More lively things. . . . 

You must go ? Ah, not so soon ! 
Well then, tomorrow. Giorgio mio, I thank 
Your immediate devotion and courtesy 
For this kind visit — thus — on both your cheeks. 

[69] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

The Triumphant Tuscan [continued] 

So you found the old fellow — eh? There's a step 

down. 
You slide the bolt. Good night ! Good night ! 

x\nd now 
Something to draw with. Here is the design : 
A graybeard — in a go-cart — with his hourglass. 
Anchora Imparo on the scroll above. 
Excellent truly. Such a one am I. 
I learn even in decay. 

Ah yes, Bramante 
Did wish to ruin me — for Raphael's sake 
We'll say — and certainly I never told him 
I was so singly sculptor as to be 
Unable to paint any foreshortened figure 
Upon a vault. . . . Yet that was toil indeed ! 
The length of wet fine plaster, the cartoon 
Stretched on the surface, and the outlines traced, 
Muscles and draperies dashed in with the stylus. 
Till my head twisted like the wool-guild's lamb. 
My breast clove to my backbone, dropping plaster 
Bedaubed my face as though I wore a mask. 
And then the surface took a mist, and then 
That rascal, Julius, tried my twanging nerves 
With silly directions from his post below 
Till I was fain to wrench out scaffold planks 
And hurl them on his stubborn head. 

I see him 
Standing as on that April day he laid 
[70] 



THE TRIUMPHANT TUSCAN 

The Triumphant Tuscan [continued] 

The new Saint Peter's firm foundation-stone. 

Shouting the crowd back from the pier's deep pit. 

Sprinkling the marble with a benediction — 

The stone that held the vase deposited 

And filled with coins and medals ... I can see 

His armor flashing as he reviewed the troops 

Another time — or watch him as he plays 

At tric-trac, wholly easeful, or again 

Sight him against a marble balustrade 

'Mid trellised roses, with his snowy beard 

Pouring upon his crimson mantle, smiling 

On two court lovers in a loggia. Ah, 

He was a man ! He quelled the whole Romagna, 

Panted for time toward more great purposes, — 

And slave-drove Art — yet always with intention 

Beyond the dull ambitions of the great. 

Leo was waste, Clement was vacillation, 

Julius was power, — Julius was power indeed! 

The man of action, how he dwarfs the artist ! 
Though many a doffed beretta has done me honor 
And Francis and the Sultan fawned on me. 
Faugh for the artist's life! 

I know I lie. 
For this is sure among all things unsure : 
That he who holds, through good or evil hap. 
The hegemony of his soul's own city. 
Disfranchising all lusts and vanities. 
Has more than all the kingdoms of the earth, 

[71] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

The Triumphant Tuscan [continued] 

Is more than that poor Prince of Niccolo's, — 
His brilliant, impossible, calculating — monster . . . 

And so, as ever, Vittoria returns 

To stateliest music through my memory. 

Monte Cavallo, be thou blessed hence. 

Though at thy foot they say red Nero stood 

To watch the flame-filled cloud of burning 

Rome! 
For there my love would build a nunnery. 
I promised her designs. . , . 

My drawings pleased her; the Pieta most. 

On the last day she said that I should stand 

At the Lord's right hand in heaven. Ah^ her heaven, 

" Magnificent Messer Michelangelo," — 

From which distilled such cooling dews upon 

Your eternal misery of procrastination, — 

What heaven for you ? 

Heaven — heaven in those hours! 

Her pamphlet on " The Passion of the Redeemer " 
Rests — here ; the same the Inquisition searched for. 
This folio of her sonnets. . . . God's spark ! 

God's spark! 
Hands off, Bemho, thou polished humanist, 
They need not thine august imprimatur! 
She saw a flaming sign in Juan Valdez 
Who thundered at the Curia's corruption, — 
Wrote many poems in the Valdensian spirit, — 

[72] 



THE TRIUMPHANT TUSCAN 

The Triumphant Tuscan [continued] 

Loved the Capuchins, hated evil things. 
Took pity on poor Renee. . . . 

Thanks to God 
She sleeps, while cruel beasts hunt down the just. 
This church they see is not the church she saw 
Nor ever could be ! 

Oftentimes she came 
From Santa Caterina into Rome, 
And died within the convent of Sant' Anna. 
And died within the convent — here at Rome. . . . 
Now in that mystical convent of white stoles 
With Beatrice, where the yellowing Rose 
In sempiternal fragrance rays its lightj 
And light in the form of a river gloweth there 
With ineffable effulgence . . . every side 
Living sparks like ruby and like topaz shine 
Among the flowers , , . " Light is thereabove 
Which makes the Creator visible to that creature 
Which has its peace only in seeing Him ... J '^ 

So-o! So-o! Well, Messer Cock, don't split your 

throat 
Shrilling of dawn without! The gray mists seep 
Through door and window. How my candle pales ! 
'Tis time to stumble to my iron bed 
Up obdurate stairs, up past the Death I painted 
That with his coffin looms confronting me. . . . 

" Rend thou the veil. Dear Lord! Break thou the 
wall! " 

[73] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 



MICHELANGELO IN THE 
FISH-MARKET 

Here's color for my monsters ! Verily, 
This is no Arno-spawn, — far greater game ! 
These shimmering, gleaming, flashing forms first 

came 
To sunlight in the great iEgean Sea. , 

Ye sacred symbols ! They have whispered me 
Your Greek style bears the initials of His name 
And titles, where lies hidden in the same 
The Sibyl of Erythra's prophecy! 

Howbeit, Messer Domenico, j^ou 

Shall gape to see my drawing when I'm through. . . 

What dawn-pulsed gills, what splendor on each 

scale ! 
This mullet's bottle-green, with silver under, — 
That weird, dark-flecked murena. . . . Well, no 

wonder 
I shall net Popes when soon I spread my sail ! 



[74] 



BAST 



BAST 

She had green eyes, that excellent seer. 
And little peaks to either ear. 
She sat there, and I sat here. 

She spoke of Egypt, and a white 
Temple, against enormous night. 

She smiled with clicking teeth and said 
That the dead were never dead;- 

Said old emperors hung like bats 

In barns at night, or ran like rats — 

But empresses came back as cats! 



[75] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 



THE SUN GAZER 

The zenith age was past of earthly spoil 
For Egypt. Amonhotep's and Thothmes* 
Scythed chariots swept Syria. For their foil 
Strange Akhenaten 'twas succeeded these 
With single worship, where the shrewmouse even 
Was sacred to some god of Egypt's heaven. 

When kings were likened both to bulls and lions^ 
Forth in simplicity came this one king. 
Foreshadowing Israel's belief and Zion's, 
With only words of love and peace to bring 
An age of banditry and ravening lust, — 
He the vain dreamer, the gentle and the just. 

For there, in the far dark of history. 

He saw one God above all gods endure 

In the sun of heaven, one strange sublimity. 

Source of all living things, one cause and cure, — 

Nor mere effulgence and material heat. 

But an all-being, that caused the heart to beat. 

The fine green scarabs of his father's reign 
Bear graved accounts of festival, oblation. 
And ceremony. These the son thought were vain 
Unless to Aten, Lord of all Creation, 
[76] 



THE SUN GAZER 

The Sun Gazer [continued] 

Whose gross, deceitful shade was Amon-Ra. 
" Adoring with their wings thy sacred ka, 

** The birds fly in their haunts ; the fishes be 
Dazed with the bright profusion of thy beams 
Even in the deeps of the green-glimmering sea ! " 
He sings; and when he died, slain by his dreams. 
The plotting priesthood triumphed with their guile 
And left his name no trace, and called him vile. 

But beneath crescent cliffs there lay a bay 
And a small island, where Akhenaten made 
A city for the chosen of his day. 
Where all should love and no man be afraid 
And the many-handed beams touch all, and bless 
All equally, and wither wretchedness. 

" The Aten my father 'twas who brought me here. 
The City of the Horizon this shall be. 
O rampart of a million cubits sheer. 
Remembrancer, thou, of eternity, — 
O thou whom no artificer hath known. 
Aid me to build ! I see in thee alone ! *' 

He raised his temples, shadows-of-the-sun. 
*' Words of the priests," he said, " more evil they 
Than those things King Nebmaara hath known done 
Or Menkheperura heard! " So many a dj\y 

[77] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

The Sun Gazer [continued] 

They painted walls with lotus-flower buds, 
Embossed the panels and set the golden studs, 

Raised costly cedar covered all with gold, 

Scored out the name of Amon from far cliffs 

And graffti, made the courts fair to behold 

With masts and chiseled scenes and hieroglyphs, — 

But o'er each pylon, wall, and obelisk, 

The true God flashed his symbol, the sun's disk. 

Ah then the Theban triad paled and bowed. 
And Khnemu doffed the twi-plumed atef crown. 
And Nak, the demon-serpent of the cloud. 
And the great judge, Osiris, all bowed down; 
And Thoth, the ibis-headed giant turned 
Wild eyes and gnashing beak, and Isis burned 

With frustrate wrath. Along the haunted road 
To the pyramids, along the lonely plain 
From Heliopolis' nome, a concourse flowed, 
Gods on the gods' high way, wailing in vain 
To Harmachis, the sphinx. The burial-ground 
Of ancient kings echoed and stirred around. 

Processions of images and ghostly boats 

And strange shapes striding with heads of eat and 

ram 
Or jackal- jaws; eyes of each beast that gloats 
Widened in panic of one who breathed " I am ! " 

[78] 



THE SUN GAZER 

The Sun Gazer [continued] 

The snake of the northwind, the barque of Ra 

Drove eastward toward the dark peninsula. 

Nun, of primaeval waters, led the van; 

Horus, the falcon; Mentu, god of war; 

Atmu, Anubis; roaring Sekhmet ran 

From Memphis; like a golden cloud, Hathor, 

With Hekt, frog-headed, the goddess of all birth 

And Set, the spirit of evil on the earth. 

The goat- faced potter of the cataract; 

Hawk, ram, and man-faced sphinxes, all fled by 

Like refugees from out a city sacked, 

A wave of darkness under the dark sky, 

A rout of star-mist that far shepherds soon 

On lonely hills saw travelling past the moon 

In rolling clouds tinged with weird bloody dye 
And tossed in monstrous shapes. They seemed to 

hear 
Lowings and hissings and wilder sounds on high. 
And darkness fell upon them, and great fear, 
And their sheep huddled as at the khamsin's blast 
As out of Egypt the gods of Egypt passed. 

So Akhenaten triumphed — a little space; 
But priest and warrior stood against his light. 
He sickened, died at last in the disgrace 
Of all — for Sephel, king of the Hittite, 

[79] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

The Sun Gazer [continued] 

Smote the Canaan and conquered as with fire. 
Ribaddi stood, and Abimilech of Tyre; 

Ribaddi, king of Byblos, keeping faith 

With Egypt, as did not faithless Aziru, 

The Amorite. And rebels wrought great scaith. 

Murder and plunder, and still the conquest grew. 

** — And Tunip thy city weeps, her tears are falling ! 

For twenty years, oh king, we have been calling 

The King, the King of Egypt, our great Sun . . . 
Simyra is a bird into the snare . . . 
But thou hast sent us not one word — not one ! " 
So wails their anguish in th' old character. 
Deputies, officers brought curse and prayer. 
Yet Akhenaten brooded in despair. 

Still loving peace, still praying weariedly 

To his one god that naught could quite abash. 

" As long as the King's ships are on the sea 

His strong arm held him Naharin and Kash, 

But now the Khabiri sack the King's strong cities ! 

King, save thy land, this day of direful pities ! " 

Thus the cuneiform from Palestine 
And all of Syria's empire holding leal. 
Then night came down on Akhenaten's line. 
The bitterest pang for any king to feel 
Rended his heart. His people died the death. 
And all that he could give seemed idle breath. 
[80] 



THE SUN GAZER 

The Sun Gazer [continued] 

The city of brightness gradually darkened 

To a city of the grave, necropolis 

Of even God. All night, wide-eyed, he hearkened 

Curses and wailings from a black abyss 

Of slaughtered lives, — he, who would put no trust 

In spear or chariot or the loud dust 

Of marching hoplites with their emblems flashing 
O'er the lapped shields. His empire fell apart. 
And Egypt's earthly might; and black waves, dash- 
ing 
Their tear-floods, roared in caverns of his heart. 
As some seamed warrior from the east, alone. 
Stood with clenched fists, imploring, at the throne. 

The captured cities near Orontes mouth. 

The sea-coast cities, the provinces all torn. 

Despoiled and rent, the vineyards of the south. 

The ravaged pasturage and trampled corn. 

The desperate defense, the falling wall, — 

And still he prayed, " There is one God for all ! " 

Yes, he put by the sword, put by the sword. 
And so lay dead. And Harmhab took his place. 
That doughty captam whom all the folk adored. 
Who wrought and fought and won back for his race 
Gradual sway. Then Rameses held power 
Soon, and their conquest knew a zenith hour 

[81] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

The Sun Gazer [continued] 

Till, with his death, at length all fell apart. 

And hordes from west and east, from south and 

north. 
Made the land strengthless. So our musings start 
On Akhenaten. Lonely he went forth. 
Lonely he died, the zealot to the last. 
Cast in a mould wherein no king was cast; 

The man who saw his God so face to face 
All else was shadow in that blinding light; 
The man who willed salvation for his race 
Through happiness at last before the night; 
He who would build on love, and love alone. 
The welfare of a kingdom and a throne. 

His name they cut from all the monuments, 
Heaped the opprobrium, raised their gods once 

more. 
And passioned on after their own intents. 
Again I see him tread the painted floor 
Between the gilded columns, in the cool 
Of some high lakeward-looking vestibule. 

He murmurs, " Living in Truth! " — his title then. 
" Living in Truth ! " and " Aten, I behold ! " 
A pale, frail youth, whose body should have been 
Lapped, like his mother's, in sheets of purest gold 
Ere it was coffined, — for there a King stepped 

down. 
Of old, to doff his crown — and take his crown. 

[82] 



THE QUEEN'S IDYLL 



THE QUEEN'S IDYLL 

KiLiMANDJARo, Father of the Nile, 

Smiled not on any fairer. 

Nor Narmer, the old Scorpion, king of guile 

In predynastic glory. 

The diadems are two, the red and white, — 

Of both she was the wearer. 

Oasis apricot, the moon's delight! 

'Tis of the Queen Hatshepsut that I write. 

Hear the Queen's story! 

Queen of Two Lands, by Lower Egypt crowned 

With thronelike headdress high 

And red, whereon was Upper Egypt's bound 

Of linen stiff and white, — 

Sister and wife of Thothmes, she appeared 

Beneath the Haw^k-god's sky 

Wearing the collar and the small false beard 

To seem full monarch-man. The bright asp reared 

Golden from brows as bright. 

From Buto in the Delta to Aswan 

At the first cataract 

" King of the North and South " her titles ran. 

And east to Sinai's cliffs, — 

[83] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

The Queen's Idyll [continued] 

Hailed " golden falcon of the solar blood ** 
Where e'er her camels tracked, — 
Her father Amon named, who, in a flood 
Of light and perfume o'er her mother stood. 
As hymn the hieroglyphs. 

Yet dreams, strange dreams perplexed the royal 

heart. 
The Queen to Karnak fared 
Where the superb propylons leaned apart 
Masted with cedars tall 
And brilliant pennants. She entered from the 

light. 
Heart-throbbing that she dared. 
And stood 'mid soaring pillars beneath the bright 
Enameled semblance blue of gilt-starred night 
In the hypostylic hall. 

Beyond, in monolithic shrine, the god 
Held seat and sacred ark. 

Around him, sculptured courts, where e'er one trod. 
With battle-scene and myth 

The walls were colored. Palmed priests ap- 
proached the king 
Bearing the holy barque 

Of Amon, lord of thrones. Their rites they sing. 
" Souton di hotpou! " She renders offering, 
Invoking signs therewith. 
[84] 



THE QUEEN'S IDYLL 

The Queen's Idyll [continued] 

" We love, O Father Amon, Lord of Thebes 

And guardian of Karnak ! 

As silver doarah sprouts from darkest glebes 

Our heart shows forth its love. 

Then, as thou lovest the king, pray counsel Us 

To find what now We lack, — 

From the great Double House that 'mures Us thus 

How to adventure some voyage perilous 

We scarce feel worthy of ! " 

The god bespeaks the priests who understand. 
While sistrums softly thrill: 
" The ladders of incense in the secret land 
With mystery tease my rest. 

Plant these, to deck my house! When night ap- 
pears 
Then seek there what I will, — 
I, Amon thy Father, lord of hopes and fears; 
Through my strong genii of the myriad years 
And those of east and west! " 

Sibylline utterance ceased. She bowed her head. 

Copper-clasped leopard-Ekin 

Swung on her shoulder. The linen headdress 

spread 
Striped folds upon her breast. 
She turned — from apron to her ribboned queue 
Kingly, and next of kin 

[85] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

The Queen's Idyll [continued] 

To gods. She trod the whispering pave, and 

through 
Huge doorways to her waiting retinue 
And home through heat to rest. 

Senmut, with his knobbed stick of cherry wood 
And black curled wig, in broidered linen gowned, 
Obeised before the high-plumed Queen, and stood 
Under her gleaming throne whose sides were bound 
With lotus and papyrus. " Thy temple walls 
Are finished. Majesty. The hot South calls. 

" And at command we seek the Balsam-land, 
Put now to sea for Fount, where Thou hast heard 
Of fabulous treasure, jewel-dazzled sand. 
Numberless herds, and many a gorgeous bird. 
We bring you back the incense-trees you seek ! " 
The Queen's lids lowered. She thrilled to hear 
him speak. 

The golden graven collar she had given 
To this her architect flashed on her eyes 
Collyrium-lengthened each to a dark heaven 
For his deep gaze. She leaned. He heard her 

sighs. 
" Instruct my captains," he heard her softly say, 
" And swiftly sail, — oh, swiftly sail away ! " 

[86] 



THE QUEEN'S IDYLL 

The Queen's Idyll [continued] 

Each cabin is a very stately house 

With pillared doors. The painted flag-ship gleams 

From lotus-flower stern to golden bows 

With green and yellow. The sail is cloth of dreams 

Spread on a wide yard double the high mast's 

height. 
And thirty rowers dip in tides of light. 

The boardings are like chapels. Prow and stern 
Bear Harmachis, the Ibex, and the Cow. 
Brave-striped and diapered awnings, fans that burn 
With peacock eyes, shadow the deck. And now 
The captain lifts his wand. The green and red 
Chequered, embroidered, tasseled sail is spread. 

And toward far Fount the graceful ships are gone 

For stranger freight than other Nile-craft quest 

Through caravans of ointments, cinnamon 

From Ind; or ships of Tarsus and the west 

Lade with their precious woods, or argosies 

Of Colchis, with their brass, bear down the breeze. 

A month they loitered toward that wonderland, 
Then saw the small coned huts and short-horned 

cows 
And point-beard, pigtailed people on the strand 
As known to Chufu. For their necks and brows 
Gay necklets had they brought, daggers and rings. 
They set them out to barter with these things. 

[87] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

The Queen's Idyll [continued] 

Then to these strangers from far Tamera drawn 
The ruler's heart was warmed; and cups of gold 
And birds of peacock plumage, snared at dawn, — 
Paint for the eyes, pearls priceless to behold 
(With apes dog-headed and monkeys with long 

tails !) 
Crowded the decks *mid casks and ropes and bales. 

There was a cargo of rare khesit-wood 

With powder of Ahem, kash and copper-ware. 

Mountains of incense-resin purple-hued. 

And hunting leopards, snarling with golden stare; 

Gold stone and blue and green ! The sailors sing, 

** Never was like brought back to any king! " 

All treasures of the Land of Fount, all balms 
Of the Divine Land ; thirty-one growing trees 
For Amon-Ra ! They left the cocoa-palms 
And Parihu, the Prince, throned at his ease. 
The suite of the great Queen's ambassador 
Struck camp and left that white sea-whispering 
shore. 

When the canal was reached, two years or more 
Had passed at last. By the high granite quay 
People from wharves and roofs watched them out- 
pour 
Their curious spoils. The Queen came down to 
See, 
[88] 



THE QUEEN'S IDYLL 

The Queen's Idyll [continued] 

Borne in her naos, with emeralds of Sinai 
Globed from brown ears, green uat on lid of eye. 

Snake bracelets and a helm of blue with brass 
Studs, and her skin made gold, — on all her limbs 
The oil of Ani. So Senmut saw her pass. 
Newly-returned. Along the quay she swims 
Reclined on cushions of red and blue, fresh-bathed 
And dressed, in silver tissues sashed and swathed. 

The painted ships, giraffes and monkeys green. 
Wild-bearded chiefs — all in the hot sunlight, 
Black Nubians white-toothed, and, there' between 
The brick-hued sailors, and the wondrous height 
Of trees and scented bales, — on these there smiled 
A radiant Queen, enchanted as a child ! 

** The merchants from Javan, traders of Tyre, 
Arabian horsemen with their cream-skinned mares, 
Slavemen of Sais who have bound with wire 
Slaves black as fish-spawn, — those who cry the 

wares 
Of Persia or of Kedar, — verily,*' 
She cried with laughter, " now must envy me ! *' 

But Semnut, seamed and sunburnt, stood apart 
Watching — whene'er the crowd craned necks a 
space 

[89] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

The Queen's Idyll [continued] 

To hark some foreign parrot — how there would 

dart 
A shadow of desolation o'er her face 
And a strange query line her little brows. 
So she rode back to the great Double House, 

Sighing, *' But where is he ? " with troubled looks. 
And then she called the temple scribe, to see 
Number and measure entered in temple books. 
Careful of count, and grave, was Te-hu-ti, 
For the god Horus watched, and the just scales 
Held Theban Amon's tribute in roped bales. 

All afternoon the measurement went on. 
The checking and the storing, on the quays 
The din and dust. At last the trees were drawn 
Up the long dromos to the terraces 
Of the King's temple, from the Libyan beach. 
But still Senmut came not and sent no speech. 

And she, too proud to question, since he did 
Her this discourtesy, who — hated not 
Her architect, — paled lest his bones be hid 
In some far desert grave, some ghastly spot 
Of lean cadaverous lions. And then she said, 
" My other envoy spoke — he is not dead — " 

Yet bit her nails for doubt. Red evening came. 
And swiftly was blue night. And many lights 
Twinkled afar o'er Thebes. Now, since the flame 
Of day was cooled, on the gay-awninged heights 
[90] 



THE QUEEN'S IDYLL 

The Queen's Idyll [continued] 

Of flat white roofs the people took their ease. 
Or under tamarisk or cedar trees 

In their pooled gardens. But Hatshepsut made 
Her favorite baris glide across the Nile. 
At the river-steps her Nubian guard she bade 
Halt and await her. And up the moonlit aisle 
Of crouching sphinxes, her likeness in each 

face, 
She moved, so small, yet with such state and 

grace. 

Up past the first propylons, now alone 
From terrace on to terrace. There the night 
Showed shadows where the new myrrh-trees lay 

prone 
Or stood to wait the coming of the light 
When men should plant them. At last the col- 
onnades 
Of the portico, alternate lights and shades. 

And therewithin to Amon she abased. 
Bidding him take his own, the trees of myrrh, 
Her gift and venture. Yet she prayed in haste 
As swift to somewhat else. He answered her 
Only by grave full silence. Forth she stepped — 
Stood waiting. The dim stars burned. A foun- 
tain wept. 

[91] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

The Queen's Idyll [continued] 

Then, gazing on her terraces full set 
With " ladders of myrrh *' under that holy gleam 
Of trembling stars — yet with a wild regret — 
Before her glimmering temple, " O barren dream 
Of loveliness ! ** she sobbed. 

Her lover came 
Forth from the shadows. Senmut breathed her 
name. 

Pressed close against his heart, " Thy words to me, 
Amon, my Father! ** she murmured in amaze. 
" So far I sought ! Yet all I sought was — he ! 
And knew not ! '* 

Thus the night's dim violet haze 
Veils their embrace. Anon, a lingering breeze 
Wafts dreamy fragrance from the incense trees. 



[92] 



THORSTAN'S FRIEND 



THORSTAN'S FRIEND 

To Laura 

Now when we were come to that bright gleam of 

waves 
Frowned on by purple dusk, lit like a cave's 
Dim gulph with fox-fire — too malicious lit 
Before the thunder split 

Heaven and earth with shattering peal on peal! — 
Under the canopied dark all Thorstan's steel 
Flashed as he leapt upright 
And stood with folded arms affronting night. 

The great prow dragon-headed 
His right hand clutched, as though that clutch im- 
bedded 
The mane of some proud steed by prouder master 
Praised fiercely for dominion of disaster. 

He spoke. It was as when the gull-king cries. 
He looked, and all his life stood in his eyes. 
And mine stayed terrored on his furrowed face. 

So we two, and the ship, in that strange place 
Were glassed within the storm's green evil light. 

[93] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

Thorstan's Friend [continued] 

Then Thorstan raised both arms up to their 

height 
And cried " Thor ! " (hearing the thunder) and 

cried "Thor!" 
Dropped arms, and cried no more. 
His beard like mistletoe lay on his breast. 

There is one track that all our fates attest 
And when we reach the end it is well known. 

So Thorstan cried no more. He groaned no groan. 
He raised his head again and took my hand. 
" You who come after, may you understand ! " 
He gazed, mounting the bulwark. Flashing 

spray 
Blinded my eyes. I turned my head away. 

Then the storm burst. The dark blew out the day. 

At the long last I lay along the shore. 
Pennons of chilly light whipped in the west. 
My limbs were leaden and I longed for rest. 

Vikings, you will not find him any more. 
He knew, who had reached his end. 
To save him — would a man not save his friend 
Before his life? But this was other kind. 
He knew. I knew his mind. 
[94] 



THORSTAN'S FRIEND 

Thorstan's Friend [continued] 
And if I live the sun again will rise. 
And if I live the moon be in the skies, 
A warm hand touch me and a dear face see ! 

With him the thing was other. Such as he 
Desire no crown of our dull victories. They 
Fling from their eyes the jeweled glittering spray 
Of kingdoms and peer ever toward the west. 

By such strange rending hunger dispossessed 
Of steed, of store and stead, of wife and bairn, 
Thorstan's gnarled body in some sandy cairn 
Under the shifting tides lies turquoise-eyed. 

But that, the ghost in Thorstan, doth not bide 

By wet or dry or where we feel the air. 

This heart within me knows it is not there. 

{My friend, my friend, my friend!) 

This heart says, crying, it is not the end. 

Bringing no peace, it says — yet says and says; 

For here — here was the parting of our ways. 

I cannot know — -but he.^^ . . . 

Broad lies the light along the level sea. 



[96] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 



THE BALLAD OF TAILLEFER 

To Elinor Wylie 

On the judgment seat of Alfred, 
Acclaimed by churl and thane. 
Sat Harold the son of Godwin 
With the sword of Athelstane, — 
The Earl of the West Saxons, 
With Edward in his mind, 
Harold, Lord of Britain, 
King of the English kind. 

In Rouen fumed Duke William 
And swore this should not be. 
By the Mount of the Archangel, 
By the saints of Normandy; 
A.nd Tostig, Harold's brother, 
Northumbria's banished earl. 
Spake with Harold Hardrada 
And saw his fierce lip curl. 

So the Norse returned to England 
With fire and sword, and found 
One gift from the golden Dragon — 
Seven feet of English ground! 
[96] 



THE BALLAD OF TAILLEFER 

The Ballad of Taillefer [continued] 

A shield wall by Gate Fulford, 
Thick spears on a windy ridge. 
The last of the ancient sea-kings 
Routed at Stamfordbridge. 

But below the Picard river 

The south wind came at last 

To the sails of all Duke William's ships. 

His ships were sailing fast 

North on the misty channel 

When stars were glittering, 

And under the Mora's lantern 

One knight sang to the king. 

Taillefer, Cleaver of Iron, 
Bearing a name for the strong, — 
Yet Taillefer, youth of laughter. 
Thrilling the night with a song 
Of Charlemagne and Roland, 
Of a horn that mocked despair. 
With a voice of youth and victory — 
Taillefer! Taillefer! 

Brooding the Conqueror watched him 
And his rapt uplifted face. 
Light of the eyes that challenged. 
Freedom and strength and grace. 
Merry, untouched by evil. 
Open and frank and kind; 

[97] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

The Ballad of Taillefer [continued] 

And a serpent stirred in the darkness 
That filled Duke William's mind. 

Through the wet wave at Pevensey 

The armed host threshed to shore, 

And the Duke would first have reached the land 

But a light step leapt before 

First on the coast of England 

Bareheaded with blowing hair 

Bounded that unleashed leopard 

The young knight, Taillefer, 

Sudden abashed and halted 

By the Conqueror's loud commands 

He paused. Duke William tripped and fell, 

The earth in his two hands. 

" So I take seizin of England ! " 

He cried with a surly glare. 

Yet caught youth's impish laughter 

In the eyes of Taillefer. 

Now a thane rode to King Harold 
With tidings strange indeed. 
And Harold marched for London 
Ere the man had turned his steed. 
Calling aloud to the muster 
All sons of English sires. 
The Dragon and the Fighting Man 
Flamed southward through the shires. 
[98] 



THE BALLAD OF TAILLEFER 

The Ballad of Taillefer [continued] 

And southward from London muster 
And the rood in Waltham's fane 
Levies pressed to the Standard 
Of the troops that met the Dane, 
Till they stood on the heights of Senlac 
From all the shires and towns, 
Battleaxe men and darters 
High on a spur of the downs. 

And south on the Hill of Heathland 
Duke William, peering, vowed 
A minster to St. Martin 
Where the English gleamed like cloud. 
To the blessing of Bishop Odo 
Knelt men from Boulogne and Maine, 
Poitevin, Breton, Picard, 
That their hope be not in vain. 

So the night passed. The morning 

Grew gray in the chilly air. 

The Conqueror summoned to his tent 

The young knight Taillefer. 

** Youth would go first ! " He eyed him. 

*' Rashness best fits the fray. 

Singer of songs of daring 

Lead thou the van today ! '* 

With open eyes of wonder 
Youth faced embittered craft. 

[99] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

The Ballad of Taillefer [continued] 

Then, in a flash of vision. 
Sudden the young knight laughed. 
And a shaft of early sunlight 
Struck gold from his tangled hair. 
** By the banner of the Apostle, 
Yea, sire ! " cried Taillefer. 

So beyond Telham northward 
The Norman knighthood rode. 
Billmen and jerkined archers 
Through marsh and wasteland strode. 
Toustain the White with the banner 
Bright glimmering through the haze, 
Odo in gleaming armor 
By the Bastard of Falaise. 

There was to cross the English fosse 
And then the host stood still 
Where that ash-woven barricade 
Frowned from the sloping hill. 
A burthened pause ere battle 
About the hour of prime. 
And sunlight burst upon the downs, 
A lark began to climb. 

And out from the Norman vanguard 
Tossing his lance on high, 
Unhelmeted, unheralded 
Under the open sky, 
[100] 



THE BALLAD OF TAILLEFER 

The Ballad of Taillefer [continued] 

On a charger that stepped like dancing. 
With a song for all to share, 
A vivid flame in the sunlight 
Rode the minstrel Taillefer. 



Taillefer, Cleaver of Iron, 
Bearing a name for the strong. 
Yet Taillefer, lord of laughter 
Thrilling the day with a song 
Of Charlemagne and Roland, 
Of one hour that mocked despair. 
With a glorious voice of victory- 
Taillefer! Taillefer! 



Swift flew the sleet of arrows 
As the English trumpets blew. 
Up surged the host of the Normans. 
Blood glinted on the dew. 
Warriors of Kent and Essex 
Shouted defiance back. 
Hildebrand's flaming ensign 
Mounted to the attack. 



But he tossed his lance and caught it 
As his charger caracoled. 
And high over horn and battle-cry 
His ringing singing rolled 

[101] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

The Ballad of Taillefer [continued] 
Taunting, immortal, haunting, 
Superb on the sunlit air, 
A gauntlet flung in the teeth of Death- 
Taillef er ! Taillefer ! 

Then they saw him reel in the saddle 
And clutch at the saddle bow 
And the fight closed on the hill crest 
With curse and clashing blow, 
Till at length on a blinded Harold 
The shades of Senlac close 
And deep in the heart of England 
Burns the spear of her foreign foes. 

And so wars come and so wars pass — 

God knows what end to wars! 

Rapine and craft and murder 

Under the quiet stars. 

Voice of Youth's clearer vision, 

O trumpet against despair. 

Lift us to surer victory — 

Taillefer! Taillefer! 



[102] 



ON WEBBE, ENGLISH GUNNER 



ON EDWARD WEBBE, ENGLISH 
GUNNER 

His troublesome travailes 

He met the Danske pirates off Tuttee ; 

Saw the Chrim burn " Musko "; speaks with bated 

breath 
Of his sale to the great Turk^, when peril of death 
Chained him to oar their galleys on the sea 
Until, as gunner, in Persia they set him free 
To fight their foes. Of Prester John he saith 
Astomiding things. But Queen Elizabeth 
He worships, and his dear Lord on Calvary. 

Quaint is the phrase, ingenuous the wit 
Of this great childish seaman in Palestine, 
Mocked home through Italy after his release 
With threats of the Armada ; and all of it 
Warms me like firelight jeweling old wine 
In some ghost inn hung with the golden fleece! 



[103] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 



THE PRIEST IN THE DESERT 

To Douglas Duer 
New Mexico — Sixteenth Century 

Blood stained the purple panoply, blood smirched 

the holy zeal 
When Mexico long, long ago learned God from 

grim Castile. 
Great green-plumed Montezuma's folk writhed in 

a roaring flame. 
For this — remembrance in our hearts, remembrance 

that is shame. 

Yet, with no captained companies, when Cortez's 

fame burned far. 
High Marquis of the Valley under the Western 

Star, — 
With no cuirasses ringing, no pomp of banner and 

sword. 
Into the unknown North went forth plain men who 

served the Lord. 

The seven golden cities miraged the golden sand. 
But serpents crowned fire-ringed them round, black 

angels held that land. 

[104] 



THE PRIEST IN THE DESERT 

The Priest in the Desert [continued] 

Still Coronado's canyon yawns a chasm of awe and 

dread 
Wherein pulse wizard blues of noon and Hell-pits 

crumbling red; 

And rumored grotesque monsters^ rock-realms of 
devilish beasts 

On gorgeous painted mesas, seemed gospel to the 
priests. 

Infamous demons flapped the waste on black Sa- 
tanic wings 

With sulphurous breath of hideous death. All 
men believed these things. 

So once, in more than Hell's despite, north strode 
Fray Estevan, 

North from the New Galicia, scourged by the blaz- 
ing dawn. 

Sand burning through his sandals, — far-clumped 
mesquit and sage 

Mazing his sneezing burro's steps, — the skyline 
quivering rage. 

" Deus in adjutorium meum intende ... ! " Now 
The first five Joyful Mysteries smoothed clear his 

lifted brow. 
At Prime he said his office through with fitting 

psalms and prayers. 
Though the sun a brazen giant clomb his Heaven's 

golden stairs. 

[105] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

The Priest in the Desert [continued] 

That brazen giant lolled and gazed upon him, 

jowl on hands. 
Tarantula and scorpion crept rustling through the 

sands. 
When he said Tierce he felt the fierce scorn of 

those barbarous skies. 
When at the next he came to Sext, all round flamed 

lions' eyes. 

At None his thought, by small food stayed, wist- 
fully strayed to Spain. 

He saw the sanctuary lamp, the tall wax-lights 
again ; 

He saw the tabernacle veil crimson for Pentecost, 

The censers swinging at High Mass, the lifting 
of the Host. 

Fray Estevan, the Jesuit, wandered through clois- 
ters cool. 

He stopped to watch a mouthing carp gulp from 
the garden pool. 

He heard his Novice-master's voice, he chanted 
from his stall. . . . 

Yet on from None he trod alone waste sands till 
Evenfall! 

The colors from far mesas died, blue mountains 

turned to black. 
Ineffable a cooler air breathed down the desert 

track. 

[106] 



THE PRIEST IN THE DESERT 

The Priest in the Desert [continued] 

At Vespers there were stars above — and shadows 
long and high. 

The cactus took mysterious forms under the eve- 
ning shy! 

Wild treasure-cities, he had heard, crowded those 

cliffs so far. 
Weird mythologic beast and bird shrieked there 

to sun and star. 
The reek of mad blood-sacrifice sickened his sense 

afresh. 
All devilish and ghoulish things wrought on the 

shrinking flesh. 

His burro sneezed again, behind; gray gophers 
whisked aside; 

Screamed a blue-headed pinyon-jay; a far coyote 
cried. 

Then — stillness and the myriad stars, the swish- 
swish of the sand, — 

And Satan's dark familiars prowling the desolate 
land! 

He told his beads the three times through, striv- 
ing with silent dread: 

Pater Noster, Ave Maria, each added Gloria said. 

His mind clove to the Mysteries, down to Our 
Lady Crowned. 

Less loudly raced his heart, his feet more firmly 
gripped the ground. 

[107] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

The Priest in the Desert [continued] 

Then, in the solitary night, he touched his burro's 

back. 
The altar stone lay safely there, the relic in the 

pack, — 
Chalice and paten and altar wine, — safe were the 

wafers too. 
And alb and stole and maniple. Courage from 

each he drew. 

Ah, clearly shone his sacred hour! He saw the 

Bishop stand . . , 
In awe once more he gazed upon — his consecrated 

hand. 
Bronzed.'' In moonlight? Not swathed in white .^ 

. . . Yet fierce-white blazed that tryst 
With Heaven! His heart leapt, feeling still the 

glorious yoke of Christ. 

So, lips apart as if for song, once more he raised 

his eyes. 
Above the eternal star-sown worlds unfolded deeper 

skies 
Even to that white bewildering Throne whence 

healing thrills on men. 
'' Deus in adjutorium — .' '* his lips began again. 



[108] 



EUGENIE'S SOLITAIRE 



EUGENIE'S SOLITAIRE 

To Kathleen Norris 

In a yellow room 

Till past mid-night, 

A scarf of black lace 

Across white hair 

And around her face 

That, on blue gloom 

Or in pale light. 

Swims ivory-clear. 

She of the fluttering parchment hands 

Plays solitaire. 



The clock tocks. 
Each long black pane 
Streams with the rain. 
Against the fire 
The fire-irons' brass 
Glitters like glass. 
Or gold, or vain 
Desire. 

The cards are laid. 
The cards are laid 
As breaths respire. 



[109] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

Eugenie's Solitaire [continued] 

White and exact 

On green baize 

The lady lays 

Her cards. 

Her hand hovers 

To see 

What the card covers. 

She 

Thinks swift small thoughts 

Of temper — of tact, — 

Quickens her hand 

Or retards, 

Shifting the ill-planned pattern of the cards. 

On each card's back 
Is a gold crown 
And golden curlicues, 
A web design. 
The cards shine 
Brittle as glass, as she 
Lays them down 
Like a person paying dues: 
King — knave — 
(You see?) 

A heart — a spade for a grave — 
A club for a crown — 
A diamond to brave 
The rabble, like renown, — 
[110] 



EUGENIE'S SOLITAIRE 

Eugenie* s Solitaire [continued] 

But not to save! 
As the eyes smart, 
A spade, a heart. 
She lays them down. 

Red — black, 

A Queen — a Jack, 

A Heart — a Spade, — 

Black— Red, 

A Club- — A Diamond instead! 

They are laid. 

The light flickers; 

The room widens; 

The walls fade: 

Flaring and blazing chandeliers. 

Conversational surf seething beneath the lights. 

Ices, spilt wine; 

Floors that shine 

Like glass; a uniform 

With a crinoline, that nears; 

Bright eyes, bright lips, — 

Bright mockeries, bright nights. 

And the golden bees aswarm, — 

And the fears, and the fears! 

Her hand hovers 
To see 

[111] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

Eugenie's Solitaire [continued] 

What the card covers. 

She 

Purses her lips to imaginary roses 

In Spain again; 

Then the thought closes 

Like a black box-lid in her mind. 

Her eyes swim blind. 

As her hand 

Quickens its fluttering movement, or retards 

That gesture of a sunny, gallant land. 

Red — black (And the rain!) 

Blood — death, France and Spain! 

Erectly now, imperial again 

In her midnight dress. 

Exact and passionless. 

She plays the cards. 



[112] 



IN THE HOUSE OF HALLUCINATION 



IN THE HOUSE OF HALLUCINATION 

1914 

What am I saying, Katti? Yes, it's good. 

The claret. This room is just the same, nicht 

wahr? 
Its walls do not dissolve? Plaster and wood 
Somehow cohere, my dear. So here we are. 
You and I, facing, thinking, and the storm 
About to break. Old friend, we're safe and warm 
Just for an instant, though the world without 
Topples to crash. Yes, I'll lie down. A-ah, 

thanks ! 
Just for a little. An old man with the gout — 
All that is left. All Europe forming ranks 
For such a war as I foresee and dread. 
So — you arrange a cushion for my head. 
Danke! I'll try to doze. But the closed eye 
Knows the house falling, Katti. One builds it 

high. 
Yet only like a house of cards it stands 
Falling forever, slipping through my hands 
That are grown so feeble. Do I hear a clock 
Striking.^ It seems to mock — it seems to mock 
This house of shadows — and how the shadows 

spread ! 

[113] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

In the House of Hallucination [continued] 

The purgatory of the unredeemed 
Uplifts its myriad hands to clutch; the dead 
White faces writhe; and every night I've dreamed 
Such ghastly dreams . . . until at last she stands 
(For all the madhouse whirl, for all the sorrow!) 
A cluster of white orchids in her hands, 
And there is peace a little — until tomorrow. 
(Not like the woman in white, who also comes 
Under the raven's wings!) Elizabeth, 
Listen! (No, no cessation from the drums 
That roll and roll and roll us down to death !) 
But — where you are — you can forgive, and see 
All you are now, all you are now to me. 

So beautiful, so straight upon her horse. 
Backing " The Boy " superbly, fearless still 
And thoroughbred to finish out the course 
For all the slipping avalanche of ill; 
Thirst like a Cziko's for the open plain — 
Halloo, hoof-thunder, and the loosened rein, — 
But delicate, fragile, cold, the edelweiss 
That drinks the sun on glacial glares of ice; 
At last — Luccheni, by the Mont Blanc quay 
Under a heaven as blue as the blue lake. 
The boat so near. 

It aches so terribly. 
One wonders how the heart can fail to break. 
Beast! How we suffer! Beast! The sky above 
Clear as her eyes, pure as their trust and love ! 

[H4[ 



IN THE HOUSE OF HALLUCINATION 

In the House of Hallucination [continued] 

Ah dear, recall Corfu, — your villa there 
Against the hill ; the rose-field, the sea-wall 
Rose-marble; on that purely glittering air 
Your heavenly cadences that rise and fall 
Reading from Heine in your templed nook 
With sunlight patterns shifting on the book. 

Life was, well say, a puzzle. It resembled 
These scroll-work German toys, some print or map 
On wood, all cut apart to be assembled 
With hair-like lines that scarcely show the gap 
If the hands firmly press — but delicate 
Of touch lest, with the merest knock or nudge. 
The pieces fidget loose. Such was the State 
And is. This Nationalism, every grudge 
Engendered, and — the hands of power have spasms. 
Crevices show, till crevices are chasms. 
Hungarian, Italian, Croatian, 
Serbian, all the pieces of the nation 
In such a maze of jointures, joggling loose! 
One needs to be a connoiseur of glues. 
My life has just been dabbing every part 
With bayonet-bristled brushes. Is it true 
Such brushes are too stiff.'* One trusts the heart 
Too little? This Humanitarian glue 
Seems thin and pale. I always understood 
The best cement was blood. You told me blood. 
Mother, my tutors, my marshals, all those leading! 
Like old-time surgery, the cure was bleeding. 

[115] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

In the House of Hallucination [continued] 

As to my figure, some pieces interlock 
Naturally, it seems. They felt the shock. 
In Serbia, for example, when we pried 
Herzegovina, Bosnia, from her side 
To fit them otherwise. Well, I have tried. 

After Sadowa, we should have formed a state 

With all the Jugoslavs incorporate 

In amity. By the Hungarian pact 

We ruined all. Now I perceive the fact. 

Language, religion, all we undermined 

To cut the wild Serb growth whose roots entwined 

So fatally, we tliought, the Magyar kind 

And Austria's power. At last we could not shun 

That solemn rising of the Balkan sun, 

Serbia goaded champion in the lists. 

Yet the Archduke they slew saw through the mists 

A third power in the empire must have place. 

We builded pomps of mist without a base 

Save on the slaughtered bodies of a race 

That heave the empire over, dying not. 

So there came plot and plot and counterplot 

And the mailed fist, and mouths that out of Hell 

Grin their revenge, with taunts I cannot quell! 

Such is an empire. So an emperor reigns. 
Not just gold candelabra and court-trains. 
Uniforms, orders, jewels; a bloody cross. 
Rather, — loss on irreparable loss, 
[116] 



IN THE HOUSE OF HALLUCINATION 

In the House of Hallucination [continued] 

And archdukes gibbering with a madhouse leer. 
Who should have aided. It is a house of fear 
And shade, like Sternberg with its gondola-throned 
Blood-royal inmate, where mad Ludwig moaned. 
So, dear, you fled to Biarritz, Bruckenau, 
Yschl or Ireland, — kept your youth somehow. 
My mother sneered; even Charlotte, I aver. 
Was jealous — there too! But who was not, of her 
Who wished none harm, not even the anarchist. 
Charlotte ! But though I hear her, I resist 
The wild indictment. 

That white road seems to twist 
Above the Adriatic, skirts the coast 
Over the sparkling blue, and then, almost 
A league from Trieste, past villas flashing white. 
The sea-road ends, and Miramar's in sight. 
The castled crag that holds such secrets close. 
A coup d'etat indeed ! But then suppose 
He had returned as Emperor.^ The folk 
Wanted my abdication. So I spoke 
To the Baron over there. To think, with grief, 
'Twas, after all, de Momy's base, black heart; 
As Bismarck said, " That amiable thief! " 
The usurer Jecker, the upstart Bonaparte, — 
And so they sold out Max, and, on the day 
I took the crown in Buda. . . . 

A-ah, they say 
Just what they please, despite! 'Twas the De- 
cree — 

[117] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

In the House of Hallucination [continued] 

For that they shot him ! My note exonerates me. 
I'd have returned his rights of the succession 
Had he been freed; so why — feel — this oppression 
Upon my chest? Such smothering! , . . 'Tis 

avouched 
He stretched his hand, and every murderer pouched 
A golden coin. He cried, " Aim surely, aim, 
Muchachos, here! " — hand on his heart. How lame 
Our schemes are, sometimes. He had that other 

trick 
I hated, though, — running long fingers slick 
Back through his flaxen hair. Eyes of a girl! 

Benedek and Sadowa.^ Yes, there too. . . . 
But I must fold my arms against this whirl 
Of accusation. If we only knew 
\Vhat this new murder means ! They'll not accede 
To such gross terms — they'll never. Ah, poor fool 
Of Sarajevo! Boy, you simply freed 
The waiting lever. Germany must rule. 
Back to Charles Fifth and Francis, and we face 
The Gaul against the strong Germanic race. 
Louis Fifteenth felt Austria better neighbors? 
That was but once. Those days seem idle labors. 
When Francis bid for Maximilian's crown 
And lost, this centuried blood in which we drown 
Was brewed for broaching. Now at last it runs 
Red from the spigots of our great steel guns. 
[118] 



IN THE HOUSE OF HALLUCINATION 

In the House of Hallucination [continued] 

One could not change the blood. The blood was 

bad. 
It must be drawn — though all the world go mad ! 

It is no dream. Was Meyerling a dream. 

And Rudie's murder.'* The whole long fateful 

scheme 
Of sorrow on sorrow's head so wearies me. . . . 
What do I hear? What do I seem to see.'' 

The great black bloodhound whines at the door, 
Sniffs, sniffs, sniffs 'neath the throne-room door. 

Whining "War! War! War!" 
Pads down each corridor, stands at each stair. 
As I pass my chancellor — he is there. 
In the great cathedral, kneeling at prayer. 
As I lift my eyes to the holy altar. 
In the midst of the nave — he is there ! 

My shoulders shudder, my phrases falter. 

As I drive down the Ringstrasse (guards of pride 

Plumed and cuirassed, riding beside) 

Close within their ranks, where I turn my scowl, 

Is the great black head and the onyx glare 

Of those two wild eyes, and the slaverous jowl 

With its lolled red tongue. He is there, he is there ! 

Catherine, Catherine, did you dream 

What still the Russian dreams? Your school 

Of nation-building saw the gleam 

From the far-off turrets of Stamboul. 

[119] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

In the House of Hallucination [continued] 

Even then, — aye, even then 

Your yellow hand came clutching forth 

From your fastness in the North, 

On Bulgaria set your mark 

And withdrew into the dark 

Caldron of your plots again. 

Dog that whines, dog that cries, — 
Catherine, he has Poland's eyes. 
" Light came forth 
From the North." 

Aye, Voltaire, — and lightning comes. 
Harken, I can hear the drums. 
Hear the wild " Kol Slaven " rise. 
Vultures breed in Northern skies. 

You too drained the cup I drain. 
Iron, red with battle-stain, 
(Hohenlinden, Austerlitz, 
Wagram, huge Napoleon, 
And the deathly gray of dawn!) 
Son of Leopold, you knew 
More than I have travailed through; 
But the brilliant reptile wits 
Of Prince Metternich availed 
Had Louisa's marriage failed. 
Nay, this is a snarling mood; 
Yet — your Christian Brotherhood! 
Are alliances like these.'' 
[120] 



IN THE HOUSE OF HALLUCINATION 

In the House of Hallucination [continued] 

Peace, peace, and there is no peace ! 
Do I doubt of dynasties? 
Is my wandering brain so wild? 
Never — hush ! 

But I recall, 
By my archduke father's side 
When — in youth (one day of all 
Burnt in fire upon my mind !) 
In a chapel cool and kind 
'Neath a cross where Christ had died 
I knelt down . . . and saw a dove 
Pass athwart a censer swinging; 
And the sound of children singing; 
And a holy rose of love 
Spread its petals in my heart. 
Whispering, " You are but a part 
Of an hundred warring nations. 
Spread my love among them, child, — 
Bring them to their free salvations. 
Save my people, rude and wild ! '* 

Well, ah well ! But what ablution 

Granted, for that " Constitution," 

To these dark and stained hands? 

Then I planned the risen lands. 

Grant it, God! None understands. . . . 

Fight the Russian 'gainst the Prussian, 

Fight the Prussian 'gainst the Russian ; 

[121] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

In the House of Hallucination [continued] 
Austria must have what is hers; 
Might makes right ! 

Yes, ministers. 
Chatter on! But it was dark 
In that maze. I — missed the mark. 

No, Berchtold, no! Say not we ever sold 

Our spoils — Schleswig, Venetia — for base gold. 

We gave them over, ours to lose outright. 

(By Bismarck's theft!) And Lissa sends a light 

O'er Europe, Baron! On the other hand 

Was Albert — like Radetsky — on the land, 

And won Custozza, ere the princely fates 

Ended those bloody weeks at Konniggratz. 

(Shadow of Sadowa ! Forty thousand dead ! 

There, as at Solferino, blood was shed.) 

Yes, Count Cavour, I hear you. You make free 
With your reiteration, " Liberty ! '* 
Italy.'' I remember Italy. 
I:s it not branded on the soul of me? 
The Quadrilateral — four forts, you see. 
Upon which forts turned all our strategy. . . , 
What are you saying, Count.'* Well, give it vent! 
Even as Denmark? But at Prague I meant 
Good things for Schleswig ! It was my intent. . . . 
Ah no — no! God is right. 'Tis little use 
To palsy penitence with vain excuse. 
/ am too old, too old! 
[122] 



IN THE HOUSE OF HALLUCINATION 

In the House of Hallucination [continued] 

Peace? Can the Hague 
Make true the ruined hopes I built at Prague ? 
Prussia is very strong — oh, very strong! 
Auffenberg needs her. Life is much too long. 
I should have leave to die. How hugely spent, 
Those Reichstag revenues: massed armament: 
And voting more. And England.^ War-engrossed 
Since the first heretoga led his host. 

Why are you silent, Berchtold.^ Do you find 
Jebusites man our walls, the halt and blind? 
Your smile does not deceive. What can we do? 
You know this Nationalism. So you too 
Must answer for the juggernaut that comes. 
The Serb pot has seethed over. A few crumbs 
Of comfort thrown into — a tiger's den. 
That for your altruist ! ]\f en are but men. 
The better rule. The ignorant must obey. 

Yes, yes I know, ghosts, what you wish to say ! 
Yes, yes I know, phantoms ! Your writhen lips 
Mouth well enough the bitter word that slips 
Poisoned from deep-stirred peasant hearts. But I 
Have labored for you. . . . Curse me, then, and 

die! 
The royal dead, the House that weighs me 

down. . . . 
This is the crown of kings, the Iron Crown ! 

[123] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

In the House of Hallucination [continued] 

So ! Is he whining at the door. 

Still sniffing beneath the throne-room door? 

Whining and snarling, " War ! War ! War ! " 

Nay, God, he is howling " War! War! War! '* 

All through the Hofburg, wild and dismaying 

The black bloodhound is leaping and baying. 

Along the corridors, down the halls. 

Through the Volkesgarten, over streets and walls. 

Clear to the Prater, leaping and running. 

Mad with life again, loosed from cunning; 

Nose to the ground and tracking Death 

With a swinging stride and a growling breath; 

Toward the Carpathians hungrily. 

From Cracow on — on to the Baltic Sea ; 

From the Tyrol to Calais hoarsely growling 

Over all Europe foaming and howling 

"WAR! WAR! WAR!" 

So, Hound, you settle one old, old score; 
And then — or what are we Emperors for? — 
Till the end of the world, more wars and more, 
More wars and more ! 



[124] 



THE SILVER BALLOON 



THE SILVER BALLOON 

1915 

The soubrette's song still echoing in his ears. 
The footlight dazzle still upon liis eyes. 
He craned to look, and saw the blinded skies 
Yield what the searchlight sought. Great shafts 

like shears 
Raked west and east. *' How calm that beggar 

steers ! " 
He thought, appraising with but small surprise 
The floating doom. Two aeroplanes like flies 
Crawled up the stars ... it seemed for years 

and years. 

The searchlights dimmed. The four-point-sevens 

spoke. 
The great bulk lurched a little, loosed a speck, — 
And from the crowd fierce pandemonium 

broke. . . . 
He saw no bomb, no flare, no toppling wreck. 
But — in his mind — Kensington Garden noons. 
And an old woman selling toy balloons. 



[125] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 



THE MASTER OF THE FLYING CASTLE 

When white canvas towered in tiers 
From the sealine, cloud by cloud; 
When from roadstead out to offing 
All the seas gleamed thick with fame, 
In from Java and the East, 
From the lairs of god and beast. 
With a wake like mermaids dancing, 
Aymar's Flying Castle came. 

She was laid in Port o' Moonbeams, 
She was launched in Noah's prime, 
She seemed older than the triremes 
As we peered from headland grass. 
In her hold was gold and cedar 
Out of Tarshish, Tyre and Edar 
And she trailed a bannered sunset 
On a tide like burning glass. 

Aymar, Master of the Cove, 
Every salty shipwright knew. 
Everywhere a rope was rove 
Or a mate signed on a crew; 
Trim white house with hollyhocks. 
Walk of shells and hedge of box; 
[126] 



MASTER OF FLYING CASTLE 

The Master of the Flying Castle [continued] 

Meet him rolling down to harbor. 
Buttons blazing from his blue. 

Bought a black in Mozambique, 
Some outlandish port of call; 
Brought him home that very week 
When we watched her tower so tall; 
Be a gardener for the lady. 
Keep her little garden close. 
How we watched him weed of mornings 
With the bangle in his nose. 
Soon enough the Flying Castle 
Faced the seas where Auster blows. 

Talked like Choctaw, did the black; 
Lifted gentle dark dog's eyes. 
But we scouted through a crack 
In his shanty — and were wise. 
He would hold the withered charm 
High with one long apelike arm, 
Muttering, moaning as he swayed, — 
Till we crowded close together. 
Hurrying homeward — yes, and prayed ! 

When the Autumn storms were brewing 
And the trees were leaved with flame. 
Like a lover to proud wooing 
Home the Flying Castle came ; 

[127] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

The Master of the Flying Castle [continued] 

Goblins jigging in her rigging 
Were the freezing flaws of spray; 
Every samphire-bearded Triton 
Greenly hailed her on her way. 

Plunging, rearing like a stallion 

In the trough and through the crest; 

Bulking golden as a galleon 

On the witchcraft of the West; 

Purple night in all the shrouds 

Of her tropic-tinted clouds. 

Till the headland flowered its beacon — 

And the Fiend stood manifest! 

Mumbling more and more by fits, 
White of eyeball rolled askance. 
Worked the black's weird secret wits. 
Till we feared and fled his glance. 
Till one night the dark infernal 
Ritual rose to dim nocturnal 
Toil by moonlight — oil and kindlings — 
And a trancelike moonlight dance. 

Blood was smeared upon the portal. 
(Only voodoos understand!) 
Out of terror stark and mortal, 
Shriek on shriek — a smothering hand. 
Then the crackling rose to roaring 
And the swarms of sparks went soaring 
And the house flared like a pharos 
To the Castle, close off land. 

[128] 



MASTER OF FLYING CASTLE 

The Master of the Flying Castle [continued] 

Aymar's face was gray and shrunken, 
Aymar's voice was but a croak, 
Aymar's eyes were charred and sunken 
And they burned you, when he spoke ; 
Tottering palsied, as if drunken. 
Through hushed streets he did not see, — 
And the Flying Castle rotting. 
Sunk and sand-filled, off the quay! 



[129] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 



DUST OF THE PLAINS 

Rails unreeling past the brass gate-bars. 
Loud-capped tourists with brown cigars, 
Idle chatter and a giggling girl. 
And the plains' dust rising whirl on whirl — 
Rising and spreading like eagle wings, 
Ghostily hosting the redskin kings! 

A bed of live coals the sunset skv, 

All cherry embers, pulsed on high. 

Mesas like giant buffalo 

Loomed, like the ghosts of long ago. 

And the silver rails reeled out, thinned far 

From the clicJcaclacket of our flying car. 

Oglallas, Arapahoes, fighting Utes 

Wheeled from the shadow'of the buttressed buttes ; 

Painted Sioux, Cheyennes, Shoshones, 

Clinging, swinging from their piebald ponies ; 

Squaws and tepee-poles trailing by 

Through the purple twilight of the flaring sky. 

Bears* claws and beads on twisted wires. 
Sign of the Seven Council Fires, 
War-bonnets dancing, feathered with flame. 
Out of the golden dust they came, 
[130] 



DUST OF THE PLAINS 

Dust of the Plains [continued] 

Trotting, trotting their ancient trail, 
Lo-hallooing their spectral hail; 

They that crouched ere our time began. 
Smoking the pipe of Powhatan; 
Kin of the panther, hawk, and snake: 
Birch canoes on the moonlit lake. 
Creeping death on the forest path. 
Wind of the desert, whirling wrath ! 

Wild and vigilant, stoic, fierce. 
Circling the road of the pioneers; 
Spirits of lightning, wind, and rain, 
And the golden corn of the open plain; 
Bronzed hard riders with flying hair. 
Lords and gods of the open air ! 

Out of the dust, the dust of the plain. 
In phantom phalanx they rise again; 
Far from our cities of stone and glass. 
Restless forever their legions pass; 
Red Cloud and Black Moon's silent braves 
Filling the West like an ocean's waves ! 

Black stood the mesas against the sky. 
Gorges tossed back our clamoring cry. 
Back from our track fled the skein of rails. 
Binding the distance, bearing the mails. 
Winding the world on steely thread. 
And " Let me tell you — ! " a drummer said. 

[131] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 



THE RACE 

Your pursed lips suddenly sucked in a sound that 

your horse 
Leapt to. He tossed his head and stretched his 

muzzle, 
Hauling the reins, and started off at a canter. 
Riding astride in your heavy McClellan saddle. 
With straight flat back — in white shirtwaist and 

high white stock 
And black cocked hat — you wavered against the 

hills. 
On that broad white road, a clear, clean flame to me. 
Blowing into the glory of the sun 
Over the marshes. 



Caleppit — caleppit — caleppit ! 
The hoofs of my horse rang out in sudden 

pursuit 
Little puffs of dust like shots from gnomish rifles 
Followed your horse's flying heels. The road 
Rose and fell before us, as over a ridge 
By a ranch we clattered, and slanted around a curve 
Where a sheep-dog barked from a byre. The high 

sun moved 
Following us. 

[132] 



THE RACE 

The Race [continued] 

I saw you sling your quirt 
Lightly over the flank of the reaching roan. 
And the easy cradle-motion beneath me told 
riow my horse was nearing a run. 

The wind from the Straits 
Came slashing into our faces. The dusty road. 
Hard under hoof, racketed with our flight. 
A dooryard fluttered orange poppies. A team 
Drew into the dusty, bitten border grass 
To watch us by. A winding herd of cows 
Stopped to stare from a mounded hill, in the cloak- 
spread shadow 
Of crooked live-oaks. Out on that strip of steel. 
Beyond the marshes, some veering red-brown sails 
Of Portuguese fishermen made for a ramshackle 

pier. 
The hills, like a humping school of porpoises. 
Kept pace with us on the left, and luring white 
The road ran on before. 

A stretch of sand 
Muffled the hoofs, and seemed to check us. Then 
Caleppit — caleppit — caleppit! again. And neither 

gaining . . . 
Pursuer, pursued, and all a flowing illusion ! 

You rode in a cloud, and I in a cloud. We moved 
Like the wistful-tingeing sunlight of afternoon 
That glinted far out on the slowly-turning wings 

[133] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

The Race [continued] 

Of an inland-drifted gull. And high and still 
A dark hawk hovered. Our eyes, astare with speed. 
Dilated into a bright indijfferent sky. 

And then you pulled on the reins, and I tugged, 

and the horses. 
Snorting and sweating, were wrestled back to a trot, 
And we laughed and ambled along in companionship 
While I was thinking, " I wonder if she is the 

One?" 

And you, perhaps, ** I really wonder if he ? " 

Both meanwhile talking scattered half-chaffing 

things. 
One of your leather gauntlets busied about your 

hair, 
I fumbling in my khaki coat for a pipe. 
Each in youth's calm pursuit 
Of a magnificent and mateless dream! 



[134] 



THE VOYAGE 



THE VOYAGE 

My father came to me across the grass. 
Seating himself in a chair of Cliinese straw 
His clever eyes peered at me askance. 
Mutely appraising. 

" You think you wish to go? " he suddenly said. 

I munched at pepper berries. 

The sun sloped on the summer afternoon. 

The fountain trickled. 

The leaves of my book stirred idly. 

I said, " I'll go ! " I got upon my feet. 

Moonlight that night had something more to 

say 
Than for long, O long! 
The California house, beloved and rambling 
Held games and meals and reading, wood-fires 

crackling, 
Familiar voices 
Arguing kindly 

And dreams — but — the dream of dreams — ! 

[135] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

The Voyage [continued] 

High in my moonlit room I lay, star-haunted. 
I pondered also the look in my father's eyes. 

The engines tramp and stamp from the narrow 

alleyway 
Between my stateroom and the malodorous galley 
Of the big rhythmically-quivering Army Transport. 
The galley-gang, whose chief is a coal-black negro 
Fit for a fez in any Soudanese regiment, 
Splash and clatter the dishes and jabber their 

jocularity. 

Washed for supper, I cross from the door to the 

rail. 
Roll a smoke from small brown fluttering papers 
And watch grape-colored water frothing by 
Where the flashing log 
Trails and leaps like a flying-fish. 
Elbow to elbow along the rail — 
Coal-passers, engineers, non-coms — and I! 

Next me is " Chuck," his cheerful full-moon face 

Florid, aglisten. Beefy of bulk is he, 

A comic fat boy — truly, hard as nails. 

He is anxious to prove that to you, anxious to show 

That his genial views are backed by excellent 

brawn. 
He wears his cap one side and his mouth one side. 
He struts a trifle, swinging his big pink arms. 

[136] 



THE VOYAGE 

The y oyage [continued] 

He has straw-colored hair and freckles, and mops 

his neck 
And looks you over, and blurts a question, and grins, 
And vents his airy soul and expressive slang 
On the building sunset sky. 

I sit at mess 

On the right of the stocky ferocious second mate. 

(As to face and voice — his heart 

Is as soft as the puddled butter!) "Well, young 

fellah. 
Got yer braces hitched to climb the mainmast — 

huh? " 
" They got one pipe aboard this boat ! " " What's 

that?" 
"It's that Deck Yeoman's job!" "Well, y'see, 

when I 
Was just that green — '* ... " Yeah, I told the 

Chief, but he~" 
"What's she done today? Two-forty?" . . . 

" Pass the spuds ! " 
Grinning, in some unease, I sand my cojBFee, 
Unclog the condensed-milk can. 
And plunge into floury biscuits and corn-beef hash. 

In the murmurous, melancholy 
Star-hung evening of the Pacific Ocean, 
With the ship bowling, passengers strolling above. 
My clerk-jobs done for the day, and the little eyes 

[137] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

The Voyage [continued] 

Of our cigarettes atwinkle through purple velvety 
The goo-goos for'ard tune their mandolines. 
They tremor our lazy dreams 
With the flickering twinkle-tinkle of mandolines. 
On the upper deck the passengers — white moths 

or stalking ghosts — 
Turn and clot b}'^ the rail. 
Or the ship's phonograph starts with a raucous 

burr, 
(Lugged down from the saloon.) 
It whirrs to the nasal yowl of a popular song. 
It erupts barbaric black-face dialogue. 
Flinging brazen badinage at the big white moon 
That splashes the vast dark sea with silver coins. 
The flying smoke blows backward from our stacks 
In writhing patterns. 
Beneath, the deep-shadowed deck 
Is blanched as white as bone. 

Cliffs and cliffs rising out of the sea 

In the weeping dawn. 

Low cliffs, far cliffs, a strange coast lifting; 

Shouts of sunrise — that first enchanted harbor! 

Sleek brown boys dive like shimmering fish for 

coins. 
Shouts and banging trucks concatenate gangplank 

clatter. 
Stores shoot out on the wharves. Diaphanous 

dresses and laughter 

[138] 



THE VOYAGE 

The Voyage [continued] 

And starchy white fill the passenger-deck and the 

gang-way. 
I stretch my legs on the dock, with the hurly-burly 
Ramping around me in hot and dizzy sunlight. 
I work, and the itching sweat is in my eyes, 
But the sun is in my heart. 

I checked freight in Manila. 
Perched on the canvas cover of a hatch, 
Watching the bales swing outboard, and the boxes. 
Or sneezing down in the hold 
In a golden shaft of dusty sunlight. 
While the natives jabbered, 

I checked and checked the freight, and surrepti- 
tiously 
Scribbled verses, and checked the freight again. 

" Chuck,** Lord, " Chuck," you almost burst my 

ribs. 
Thin as I am, and nearly split the sides 
Of that rickety caromata we grandly hired. • 
(But no one walks !) 
Before us our withered brown driver's nightshirt 

flapped 
As he squatted nearly upon his pony's rump. 
Our two-wheeled chariot rattled with amazing 

speed 
For the size of that pony ! 

[139] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

The Voyage [continued] 

Remember the cock-fight we saw; the horrible 

messes 
They sold outside, for a snack ; the gabble-gabble 
Of contestants, umpires, backers ; the segregation 
Of seats, the unbearable odors, the whirring birds 
Slicing each other with twinkling spurs, fluff-ruffed 
With peckishness ? 

And the gawping beaten bird 
Flopping in blood on the sawdust ! 

Remember the night our driver drove us out 
Far into damp deep-foliaged moonlit country, — 
Slipped down to fix the harness, and we got ready 
For an owl-like whistle, for bandits from the 

jungle? 
Bandits ? Bolo-men with butcher-knives ! 
It was only the harness though. A piece of string 
Had busted ! 

Dc you remember the Chinese shops 
Still lit and doing business round by dawn, 
Narrow booths with flickering jets of glare 
Flinging high shadows behind the bronze-like 

figures 
That sat or shuffled within, whose slanted eyes 
Held centuries ? And the stately old walled city. 
The drowsing Bridge of Spain? 

And, " Chuck," do you remember 

[140] 



THE VOYAGE 

The Voyage [continued] 

The faces behind the lattices in those mysterious 

houses 
Our driver thought we meant^ — that sailor reeling 
Across the road, shaking his fist and cursing 
" Robbery! " at the wink of a closing door? 

Eternal rain on the Pasig, 

Eternal mournful rain; and then one night 

The band on the luneta, among the open carriages, 

Soothed our blistered souls with — Sousa's marches ! 

But ah, the bells and the boats and the lights of the 

launches, 
The bulk of big ships in the darkness, the scurry 

of sampans. 
My breathless embrace of a dream as we smoothly 

glided 
Into Nagasaki harbor, — 

the swish of our rickshaws, the racing rickshaw 

men. 
The shops like a Fair, like a jeweled peacock- fan 
Waved on a night alight with Arabian visions, — 
The ludicrous things we bought at the little booths ! 

All day I saw them coaling. 

1 saw the wonderful unfaltering ease 

With which a basket mounts from hand to hand 
Of stringy native and small brown native woman. 
An endless chain of purely primitive labor 

[141] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

The Voyage [continued] 

All through the time of siesta. 

I remember the little children filling baskets. 

The little brown children scampering round the cas- 

coes 
Filled with coal. 
And I remember 
That Irish quartermaster who yarned of the 

Yangtze 
He had sailed on a battleship, and the Hoangho. 
One night, under a davit. 
He told us, and showed us a pasteboard box he 

carried 
Filled with a set of dragon-patterned china 
For his mother in San Francisco. 

I remember the half-doped derelict 

Who stopped a few of us going ashore one night. 

Pleading to only be smuggled back to the States. 

The Ancient Mariner ! He used to be 

A gob. He called himself " a Navy man." 

Drink had done him. Part way sober at least 

He had flunkeyed Chinamen, played in a vaudeville 

troupe 
Of Japanese, and drifted back to the port 
Crawling through rubbish and refuse for a living. 
Drained by disease and the climate, maudlinly 
Sobbing for home, for home. 

Harbor waters of dream, where even tragedy 
Turned fantastic! 
[142] 



THE VOYAGE 

The Voyage [continued] 

were dying only the proud advance of a ship 
Into mirrored starlight, to which descend the walls 
And streets of a moon-white city whose phantom 

piers 
Dance with brilliant lanterns of salutation ! 

1 should find my florid Pythias, honest *' Chuck," 
A roustabout of those eternal quays. 

Heaving a cask athwart a doughty hip 

To roll it into the shed. I can hear him sing 

** Hey, cul ! Who let you in ? They do get keer- 

less. 
Some job IVe got here — hey?" 

And I, why I 
Would draw and fill a small brown cigarette 
With Bull, and twist the end, and proffer it; 
And he would stick it in a beaded face 
And scratch a match on his pants. 

So, after the day and the job. 

In a twilight of blue tobacco. 

Under golden awnings, 

Gazing over the harbor to the white night-waking 
city 

Where lazy bells had tinkled in weed-grown court- 
yards 

Through the sweltering afternoon, — 

Where, in dim old cloisters the dark old Spanish 
paintings. 

Cracked and smeared with age, somberly dream of 
scourgings 

[143] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

The Voyage [continued] 

And fast and penance and strange ineffable 

vision, — 
Gazing thither, or past the spectral sea-wall 
Where sea-birds flash and settle in the sunset. 
Where smoke on the bright horizon 
Stands like a spire. 

The spire of a sunken city, of jasper walls. 
Of life one tumult of perilous fond adventure — 
Unending glimmering dream of starry youth ! — 
Then would we muse and remember, truly remem- 
ber? 
Aye, " Chuck" indeed! 



[144] 



ALONG THE EMBARCADERO 



ALONG THE EMBARCADERO 

Along the Embarcadero 

By stanchion, plank and rope, 

The masts and crosstrees lifted 

And funnels at the slope. 

The wharfinger ojSices, 

The rattling winch and crane 

Were struck with dazzling sunlight 

That dreamed of ancient Spain. 



Along the Embarcadero 
The Slav and Swede and Finn 
Tried many a rotgut liquor ' 
At many a sordid inn. 
Yet ghosts of earringed seamen 
Crowded the tangled spars 
Above the scattering clanging 
Of the Belt Line cars. 



Tramp-schooner, bark and steamer. 
Both passenger and freight. 
Beguiled the boyish dreamer 
Beyond the Golden Gate — 

[145] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

Along the Emharcadero [continued] 
Alaska or New Zealand, 
Siberia or Japan — 
Oh, seas forever singing 
To the sailor-man ! 

Along the Emharcadero 
House-flags from East and West 
The goddess San Francisco 
Has gathered to her breast. 
Along the Eastern seaboard 
The wistful sunsets say 
" Man, when are you returning 
To San Francisco Bay ? " 



[146] 



THE CITY 



THE CITY 

To Robert H. Davis 

I WENT forth to sing the city, today's city — 

The blank stone sphinx, the monster search-light- 
eyed, 

The roaring mill where gods grind without pity. 
The falling torrent, the many-colored tide. 

Granite and steel upflung became my fountains. 
Cunningly reared and held as by a spell. * 

Lost in colossal stone, my newer mountains, 
I wandered witlessly through miracle. 

And snared in tiny toils both frail and idle 
I lost my wonder as I had lost my stars. 
Though here a mammoth heaved no man might 
bridle, 
A terrible symphony rolled through crashing 
bars. 

But small and obvious life fogged every wonder 
And itching needs and each small thirst and 
lust. 
Over me and about me roared the thunder 
Of the city's heart; I trafficked with its dust. 

[147] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

The City [continued] 

Yet beyond Babylon its ways were regal; 

Even Jerusalem its dreams outsoared. 
Loins of the lion and splendor of the eagle, 

Where swarming vermin hailed it god and lord; 

Where hardly one could touch, save to defile it, 
The dream phantasm it spread aloft at night; 

Where men snared men, and made all men revile 
it. 
Save in its moments of bewildering light. 

Yet men had thought and raised and poised its 
splendor. 

And fed the torrents of its living veins. 
And had fallen prone before it in surrender. 

Seeing its awful being repay their pains. 

A living being, but blind, where all misprision 
Flourished and fattened, and, lashed as by a 
scourge. 
Flowed fear-struck crowds — yet dupes of some 
strange vision 
As on the instant ready to emerge. 

But ever foiled — and still forever trembling 
Just past the reach of mind, the urge of will; 

Sum of all jaded aims and drab dissembling. 
Something unbuilded, to be builded still ! 
[148] 



THE CITY 

The City [continued] 

So once again, almost against desire. 

The appalling city unsealed the eyes she sealed. 
Until her darkest streets ran weltering fire 

For thought of love at point to be revealed. 

So all their eyes are fixed on mine forever. 
Eyes of dark pain, unfathomable will: 

Something unbuilded, to be builded — never? 
Something unbuilded, to be builded still! 



[149] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 



WHEN THE CATERER SANG OF HIS 
WEDDING 

To Sinclair Lewis 

To a crumbly wine-tanged writhing of macaroons, 

A tarantella of dwarf green anchovies, 

The rainbow-bubbled surf from claret seas 

Under delicate confectionary moons, 

Where aspic islands quivered with white whipped 

cream. 
Flung high the dancing dream. 

Fluttering round brown quails with crisped skin 
And gilt-foiled bottles aslant in glittering ice, 
Florentine gravies, sauces bold with spice. 
Scrolled rolls — all conscious courses suave as sin — 
Came the white breeze of napkin seeking chin. 
The undermunch so flattering and so scorning, 
And a hint of phantasmagorias to begin 
In the very early morning! 



The tart black- jellied beads of caviare. 
White sleek asparagus in mayonnaise. 
Stuffed peppers stifled from their natural blaze 
By celery chips; striped trout with sauce tartarc; 
[150] 



WHEN THE CATERER SANG 

When the Caterer Sang [continued] 

Brindled potatoes to make the palate burn, 
Olives and almonds salted crisp and thin. 
Black coffee coifed with neufchatel — a djinn 
Risen from the silver um — 

In animate masque these jigged upon a frieze 
Where golden pheasants mixed with sky-blue trees. 
Then vanished. Terrace by terrace, upward sprang 
White as bright frost, that palace of glamouries 
Built to the wild and golden god Meringue. 
Perilous carven sweetness brittly built. 
With curlicued devices pink and gilt, — 
Wizarded mist such as the moon doth make! 
On solider foundation fitly planted 
Where now a gleaming knife descended, slanted. 
And portioned melting slabs of angel cake. . . . 

Thus, on an evening when his moon was blue. 
Since Ermintrude had kissed him in the dark. 
The caterer sang the greatest things he knew. 
Dancing round Rockbridge Park! 



[151] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 



METAMORPHOSIS— NOT IN OVID 

To Sinclair Lewis 

To think behind a bib or in a crib 

May lurk some modernized Sennacherib! 

Awed saucer eyes and bland uncertain smile. 
Will they gull thousands in a little while? 

That imperturbable art of blowing bubbles 
To stoop to diagnosing liver troubles ! 

That twinkling candor and artless lurching gait. 
Lost, lost in ministerial robes of state! 

solemn babies, so absurd and antic. 
My silent apprehension drives me frantic. 

Away with horoscope and astrolabe! 

1 shall not read the stars for any babe. 

Yet — laurelled Caesar, in short dress and socks, 
Sits, fatly chuckling, toppling building-blocks. 

Kings, dustmen, clowns, Napoleon, Scaramouch, 
Chew cap-strings from each blanketed barouche, 
[152] 



METAMORPHOSIS— NOT IN OVID 

Metamorphosis — Not in Ovid [continued] 

Through their contemplative fixed scrutiny 

The world's weird unknown future winks at me ! 



[153] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 



THE HERETIC 

** Then/* said my Angel, " I leave you ! " 
" So ! " whispered my Devil, " I come ! " 

But my lips framed no regretting; 
I stood struck dumb. 

With pathos the angels would grieve you ; 

With threats the devils would fright. 
Man travails within, begetting 

A god of light. 

Now though all Heaven bereft me 
Of flowers and music's sound. 

Now though all Hell, to win me. 
Flamed red around. 

Only one thing was left me. 

One only since time began : 
To speak the truth that was in me 

And play the man. 



[154] 



THE LONELY 



THE LONELY 

You're away, and best away ; yes, it's best for you. 

Out in a white and a trim ship on the salty blue. 

O you're a happy man, sailor ! May all that's good 
betide 

Your landfall and your home-coming and the har- 
bor where you ride. . . . 

Let you forget the ghosts that walked when the fog 
was overside I 

And you're a jog by hill and bog and striding up the 

scarp 
Where the wind has famous trees to flog and harps 

an iron harp. 
Your valley lamp, your evening star, your white 

street in the moon — 
May the house you seek have its door ajar, and 

she stand in it, soon. . . . 
Let you forget the graveyard wall and the spectres' 

rigadoon! 

And I'm away in jeweled caves, wishing myself as 

well. 
On Eastern isles the tide-turn laves, bound by a 

master-spell ; 

[155] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

The Lonely [continued] 

And I'll not shiver for ghosts or graves, nor knock 

my pipe and brood — 
But xvlien the blood of the heart craves, and cries 

and finds no food 
Lonelier far than earth or sea the mind's vain 

solitude! 



[156] 



ENIGMA 



ENIGMA 

Imperishable trust 

Even in the vagrant wind that blows the dust 

Painting the sunset to our clouded gaze; 

Even in the stone that is 

Compact of verities 

We cannot know, or, if we know, despise ! 

Strange limits, laws as strange 

Of the eternal prison where we range 

Traversing but bewildered by its days ! 

Think, and be filled with awe ; 

The very breath you draw 

If on this wise, how strangely on this wise! 



[157] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 



RENCONTRE 

No, I am not so cold as that. I would 

Not have you read my mind. And that is all. Let 

be! 
No, I am not so bold as that. I could 
Not grasp and soil your spirit shining free. 
And something in your own I would not have 
Fasten on mine and feed. For something comes 

between. 
And so this is as other things have been. 



O brilliant broken lights of life ! I thrill 
To your allure. Awhile I shiver in your blaze. 
O still unspoken heights, ere the fixed will 
Stabs with its blinding beam the drowsy haze ! 
Then comes the shudder and the little laugh 
And we are gladly free of the decreed unseen — 
And this time is as other times have been. 



Admitting, I accept my loss. We seek 

A different shrine, although set in the same cliff- 
face. 

Fitting the purpose is. We are not weak 

Nor rancorous of each other in the race. 
[158] 



RENCONTRE 

Rencontre [continued] 

This trifling time may yet be baLm to salve 

The sharp and sudden wounds with which all time 

is keen; 
So let this be as other times have been ! 

So let us smile and pass. And if you go 
Through death to life, or from your puzzled life 

to death, 
(Knowing as little as the wisest know), 
At least for me you draw no troubled breath ; 
And I shall have a peaceful epitaph — 
Who might in Ilium have gazed on Helen queen, — 
Save that this is as other things have been ! 



[159] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 



THE PHILOSOPHER 

To have been far places, yes that indeed were 

merry ; 
To have seen immortal faces, — ah yes, that were 

well; 
White steeds in golden traces and golden chariots 

burning. 
Red cap and laureled column and a crazed world 

turning 
Round your world-applauded triumph — a stirring 

thing to tell ; 
Yes, yes, that were all very 
Well! 

There's many a plain and many a mountain, many 
a city. 

Many a glittering epoch, — O yes, that may 
be; 

But all the hearts exalted, and all the spirits shat- 
tered 

That burned like fields afire, have not so greatly 
mattered 

Though a mighty stir they made as they strove to 
make free; 

And if that be so, God pity 

Me! 

[160] 



THE PHILOSOPHER 

The Philosopher [continued] 

For I feel as if tonight it were all a mere phantasm 
A flowing of blue clouds and of dim-colored shapes ; 
A game of curious symbols that shine and lose 

their meaning 
'Twixt the light that blinds them and the dark 

that's screening, 
In a fiery fitful twilight where we moil but none 

escapes 
Save at last where the dark chasm 
Gapes, 

Leave then your talk of towns, talk of crowns and 

wreathes and kisses; 
Sit you silent in the starlight where the leaves 

whisper low; 
It is strange enough, at least, that our minds are 

still turning 
Our eyes still asearching, our pulses still burning! 
Chink like coins in the hand all your memories of 

old woe; 
That turns them into blisses, 
You know! 



[161] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 



FRIENDS 

To Arme McMichael Hoyt 

Walking a lonely street, I thought. 

One thing warms more than fire 

Or wine, and is not sold or bought 

At any man's desire. 

And, unlike love, not wholly of 

Passion too near despair — 

Yet walls around a sacred ground 

And builds a secret stair. 



Friends — that can set the mind aglow 

With their unfading light 

And steel the soul at overthrow 

Against the ceaseless fight. 

And, beautiful beyond men's worth. 

Walk on the walls of Time, 

Because in dearth they turned our earth 

To mirth and ringing rhyme. 



I'll add it to the mysteries 
That start on every side. 
Whoever knows and keeps the keys 
Whereto all heaven swings wide 
[162] 



FRIENDS 

Friends [continued] 

Through hours that pass — as in a glass 
Pass golden clouds and slow — 
He gave our friends for certain ends. 
Far greater than we know. 



[163] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 



TO MY FATHER 



You rhymed like Lear for us when we were small. 
Our walks with you were full of things mysterious 
Made magic by your twinkle and half-drawl. 
Because we could not tell if you were serious. 
You rose to some occasions quite imperious, 
" Explained " the jokes to us in comic papers. 
And read us Russian fairy-tales, the shapers 
Of visions grim, fantastic, and delirious. 

You laughed at us and teased us and regarded 
Our mediaeval lives with understanding; 
And often there were monsters that you warded 
Away with words unique and mirth commanding. 
We'd hang across the landing till we'd fall, 
Waiting to hear your step down in the hall. 

II 

" Well, bears ! " or " How is Little John tonight? " 
" The man who made this match, my son, must be 

a—" 
** Oh, Father, you'll not please turn on the light 
Until we hear what happened to Gackelea ! " 
[164] 



TO MY FATHER 

To my Father [continued] 

"Dark? Nonsense! Read? A very strange 
idea ! " 

The leather chair at last denounced this attitude. 

And, coiled at various lengths, we breathed beati- 
tude 

Before some world's-end castle on Mount Moria. 

There, at endearing sprawl that never cost your 

True dignity the loss of one iota. 

We would regard you from precarious posture, 

Squirming with exclamation points, or stilly 

As a hushed mouse, while thrillingly you'd quote a 

Rhyme, or wake fairies in a tiger-lily. 

in 

Time, the dark whale, spouts blithely from his 

spiracle 
A jet of memory that makes glad the sun. 
In you the intuition for true fun 
Wrought us the breathless and quotidian miracle. 
You taught us words like these with pomp satirical, 
And I have but to listen and I hear 
Your voice croon, " Shed no tear, oh shed no tear ! '* 
Swayed between the ironic and the lyrical. 

Hard lines in Caesar, equations in quadratics. 
Charades, acrostics, walks that made us pant 
And sit on stones because our breath was scant 
And our legs short; the furbishings from attics, 

[165] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

To my Father [continued] 

Furniture, daily bread, child-grief that stings. 
You took, transformed, and made amazing things. 

Yet you have looked, even as all men must. 
On the Medusa, and looked down her eyes. 
Now I perceive it, in my time made wise 
Though not with half the valor or the trust; 
Your spirit blue as steel unflecked by rust. 
Your mind forever snapping dragon-flies 
Whimsical at their sheen, their sting of lies 
But relish, where so soon all things are dust. 

You held life to us like a twirling prism 
Nor flinched a facet with your curious gaze. 
You said, " Yes, so it sparkles, so it sways." 
You hated, loved, and smiled. No syllogism 
Had said the last. All ways you cast your looks 
And walked the world and read a thousand books. 

V 

You had the touch, the gesture, the exact 
Quick divination for a tiling well-said. 
Sometimes I only find in what you read 
To us your overtones, that drove the fact 
Of greatness home with thrust, that thrid close- 
packed 
And marvelous Browning with a tongue in cheek, 
Thrilled to him on his heights, enjoyed his Greek, 
And so took all the gods, with spacious tact. 
[166] 



TO MY FATHER 

To my Father [continued] 

Your detestation inchoate Carlyle 

Turned Prussian-blue; your weakness, Stevenson. 

(" They " call it weakness !) In the lucky-bag 

Of literature you angled, for a while 

Parceled the patchwork, when the day was done 

Knew every banner from every bogus rag. 

VI 

You found a quartz-stone. Duty, and you found 
A white lamp. Truth, and Honor, a sweet fire. 
Whose ways are up the jagged crags that tire 
But whose domain has azure for a ground 
Where trumpets snarl no more but golden sound 
Hangs rapt like the great ending of a song. 
There you have peers. There all your years belong 
Who took that road, slung with a magic lyre. 

Your hands would never touch it, but in shade 
Of your proud thoughts, your dreams, to childrens* 

ears 
What men will never know, but the heart hears 
And sees bright-meteored mount the frowning years. 
All of itself, all of itself it played 
That high fantastic tune your spirit made ! 



[167]" 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 



TRICKSTERS 

To Vachel Lindsay 

I AM bewildered still and teased by elves 
That cloud about me even through city streets. 
One sings a stave and one a dream repeats. 
One, crueller, in some old resentment delves. 
I am aware they are my other selves, 
Yet to what dazzling vision each entreats. 
Casting a glamour over shams and cheats. 
Ennobling cant, buzzing by tens and twelves ! 

So then my smiling grieves the passerby. 
I strut in all vocations not my own. 
Wearing the centuries like a baldric slung ; 
Whilst shabby I gawk at this splendid I. 
Chronos and Momus through my lips intone. 
Archangels, heroes, — rascals yet unhung! 



[168] 



BEING CURIOUS 



BEING CURIOUS 

To Stephen 

1 DID not think the patriarch would speak 

But, as he slept, and dribbled at lip for drouth, 

I stuck a salty olive in his mouth 

Green with the juicy greenness of a leek. 

He swayed a little on his throne of teak 

And the fruit vanished. An afreet from the south 

Stood straight before us, like as when one vow'th 

Splendor to Baal. My legs got very weak. 

Yet, even so, I thought, he'll cry — he'll bid — 
And there will be a tablet raised to me ! 
O grief ! The patriarch gestured with his thumb. 
Truth from one more awed generation hid. 
And I so safe beneath this greenlit sea. 
And the unanswered riddle, " Is he dumb.'' " 



[169] 



MOONS OP GRANDEUR 



O'CONNOR'S CAFE 

Greenwich Avenue, near Sixth 

WHERE JOHN MASEFIELD AFORETIME TENDED BAR 

They'll have " apartments " on the upper floors 
And shops below, here where the crossways meet. 
Where " L." trains shake high trestles down the 

street 
And idle loungers lean from dirty doors. 
No more some shrewd-eyed Bacchus shakes and 

pours 
Glittering decoctions when the Spring is sweet 
With violet twilight, or through festering heat 
Of summer, while the eternal traffic roars. 

O'Connor's passes, and that tall Bastille 
With clock-face ever owlish of late hours 
Rules on, where once a strange young sailor passed 
To scour bar bright-work, dream of nights at wheel 
On vast dark seas, and to invoke such powers 
As guard his greatness here until the last. 



[170] 



MENAGERIE 



MENAGERIE 

To Bon Marquis 

One is a beaver with a wrinkled nose. 

One is a weasel, — and I do declare 

I see a melancholy small ant-bear. 

Curled furriness that snuffles at its toes! 

The wombat is both sleepy and morose. 

The Bengal tiger-cub has such a stare 

Of topaz ! Two white lemmings sit at prayer 

With proper paws, superior to foes. 

The taxidermist with scissors at his waist 
Enters my heart and says, before them all, 
(But then he always waves a silver charm!) 
" They should he stuffed! " I eye him with dis- 
taste. 
My sins are so bright-eyed and warm and small. 
The little animals that mean no harm ! 



[171] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 



FROM SPARTA 

Your voice is perilous to me. Your clear 
Unconscious voice and delicate cameo face. 
Quaintly coiled hair and subtly careless grace 
Lead me too close to quiet brinks of fear. 
Just for a space mj fire-maned fancies rear 
Raked by the snaffle and the grinding curb. 
Then, I sink back to stone, and you disturb 
My facile thought no more. But you are dear 
As the mysterious sky, the glittering sea. 
The ending of a peerless symphony 
That very breath might shatter to discoi d ; 
Fragility, brimmed with mesmeric light, 
Though held against immense and starless night, 
And sacred as the stillness round a sword. 



[172] 



THE FOIL 



THE FOIL 

Thank God for all the wrath of hypocrites 
That burnishes the blade of truth so bright ! 
Thank God indeed for malice, envy, spite, 
Fated to crown and throne their opposites ! 
Else might we, for a lack of babbling wits. 
Lose true comparative to judge that height 
Where thunder-crowned, with lightning for a light, 
Wild and benign the winged archangel sits. 

Even his cup of fiery agony 
Must fill with wine of mirth to overrun 
When pismires urge on ants that moon and sun 
Err in an orbit! And so anew we see. 
With lifted eyes, what things the planets are. 
How even all heaven can burn through one pale 
star. 



[173] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 



CHARLES DARWIN 

To Henry Seidel Canby 

This is the soul who sought and found new keys 
To Life, and bade Man rise and grasp his powers; 
Who wrested many a secret from the flowers 
And cast a shadow on bright hierarchies. 
Patient to ponder, he mounted stormy seas 
Of bigot wrath, met craft that skulks and cowers. 
And searched laborious years and days and hours 
To link the primrose with the Pleiades. 

The Cordilleras than any church more holy 
He found, Brazilian forests long adored, 
Turned to his task of truth and fathered slowly 
Man's honest search, while men cried, " God, our 

Lord!" 
Protesting still in weakness. This is he 
Who raised a temple to integrity. 



[174] 



NIGHT 



NIGHT 

To Christopher Morley 

Let the night keep 
What the night takes. 
Sighs buried deep, 
Ancient heart-aches. 
Groans of the lover. 
Tears of the lost; 
Let day discover not 
All the night cost! 

Let the night keep 
Love's burning bliss. 
Drowned in deep sleep 
Whisper and kiss. 
Thoughts like white flowers 
In hedges of May; 
Let such deep hours not 
Fade with the day ! 



Monarch is night 
Of all eldest things. 
Pain and affright. 
Rapturous wings ; 

[175] 



MOONS OF GRANDEUR 

Night [continued] 

Night the crown, night the sword 
Lifted to smite. 
Kneel to your overlord. 
Children of night ! 



[176] 



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